There was a black widow scare the other night. My wife, finishing her bath and wrapped in a towel, called out for me with the warning, “There’s a black widow in the bathroom. Hurry, it’s running.”

So I ran. Grabbing a small plastic food storage container from the kitchen, I rushed down the hall. Followed by my wife, the spider had left the bathroom and was heading down the hall toward the guest room.

I took up pursuit. Closing as the spider reached the guest room carpet, I made a move to capture him. Seeing me coming, the spider accelerated across the floor as my wife said, “Get it, it’s getting away.”

After two attempts, I trapped it in the plastic. It ran in a circle, trying to escape as I studied it. “I don’t think this is a black widow. It’s not shiny and black enough, and doesn’t have that exaggerated shape.” I couldn’t see its underside.

My wife agreed. “What do you want me to do with him?” I asked. “Set him free outside?”

Yes.

I was a little reluctant. He’s clearly a house spider, hence his location, and I knew the yard was spider rich. A black widow lives in the corner of the front porch. She only comes out at night but turn on the light at midnight, and there she is, tensing and waiting.

The spider policy is a no kill, relocation thing. That means we have a lot of spiders around the house. With spiders are webs. I went about yesterday cleaning off all the webby eaves, corners and bushes. The process is to look for a spider in the web, give warning that the web will be removed so the spider has time to leave, and then clean away the web. Probably sixty percent of the webs are vacant, dusty with debris. Spiders built them and perished, or decided they didn’t like the location and moved away.

So many webs were evident yesterday. After 30 minutes of cleaning, I was relatively satisfied and put the broom away. Leaving the garage, I looked up —

And there was another.

I swear it wasn’t there before.

But —

I was done for the day. After a few minutes of contemplating the web and the policy, I headed for the garbage cans. Tomorrow was trash day. Time for other matters.

No spiders were harmed before or after this story. At least not by me. Now, the cats are a whole other matter. They are not as spider tolerant.

But they do leave those black widows alone.