A Story

While this may not be as entertaining as Leyer's spider story, it is one that I experienced, and am now telling you...

One morning, a couple of months ago, I was getting ready for work when I heard a strange noise coming from the hall. I walked out of the bedroom and saw a cord plugged into an outlet, going down the hall, and then down the stairs. At the bottom of the stairs, I see Andrew with the vacuum cleaner. I yell down to him, "What are you doing?" Turning off the vacuum he says, "I saw a spider! It was as big as my hand! I had to suck him up!" I reply, "What? A spider as big as your hand? Was it a tarantula? Did you just suck up someone's pet tarantula? Are you trying to clog the vacuum?" Then he carries the vacuum upstairs, and I ask him what he's going to do with it. He replies, "Flush him down the toilet," very matter-of-fact-ly. Peering through the clear plastic of the waste canister, I see a lot of cat hair and other dirt. "You can't flush all of that, it will clog the toilet," I reply. Then we stood there for a minute just looking at one another.
"Can we just dump it outside?" I ask.
"No, I saw this spider outside a few days ago, and it got in, so it will just get in again."

Curious as to what this spider looked like that would make it so memorable, I took the bagless canister out of the vacuum. Just then the spider made a dash for the rim! Startled, I dropped the canister. Thankfully, instead of making a run for it when it hit the ground, the spider stayed inside, and I quickly returned the canister to the vacuum. Then Andrew and I devised a plan. First, Andrew armed himself with a plastic bowl. Then, I removed the canister and dumped it on the floor. As the spider ran from the pile of cat hair, Andrew trapped him under the plastic bowl.


I then returned the plastic canister to the vacuum, and used the vacuum to suck up the spider again.
It was then disposed of via the sewage system.