Mourning the Spider in My Bathroom

There was a spider in my bathroom. Not anymore. Now I’m weirdly sad about it.

When I first moved into my house in Shizuoka, giant huntsman spiders infested my house. By that I mean there were 3 or 4 of them. But I couldn’t get them to leave! They kept hiding in or around all the junk I brought but hadn’t unpacked yet, and it made unpacking 1000% more scary. I know huntsman spiders can’t hurt me, and they’re much more scared of me… But I can’t help it! They’re huge and way too fast!

Eventually, I chased each and every huntsman spider out of my house for good. I used my patented technique of “hissing like a cat and whacking a plastic toy katana against the wall until it ran away into my strategically open window.” But then, weeks later, another spider showed up. A tiny, non-huntsman one.

It took up residence in my bathroom, up near the ceiling in a corner. My bathroom sucks and is this tiny box with no space and certainly no windows. I don’t know how the spider got here, or why it decided this was the best place.

There was a spider in my bathroom.

I assumed it’d get hungry and leave in a day or two. But… it never did. It never made a good web because it didn’t have enough space in its corner, but I guess it kept itself fed. It was lucky I had a fruit fly outbreak from a banana, I’ve got to say.

Well, for over a month, this spider greeted me every morning, evening, and night. It’d be sitting against the wall, or hanging on the ceiling, or floating on its pathetic webs. I caught it building a web once. It was sometimes scared when I showed up in the middle of the night, but it never ran away from its spot… It just stayed in the corner.

The spider in my bathroom basically became my pet that I never interacted with except occasional glances. My reluctant roommate, more like. But it was a satisfying existence.

Until a couple days ago, that is.

I went to the bathroom before bed, and I found it no longer in its corner. Instead… it was on the other side of the bathroom, walking. Frozen in place when I entered, but clearly going somewhere. Maybe when I’m asleep it gets bored and wanders around, I thought. But I shrugged it off.

Then a few hours later, I faced the consequences of drinking too much water and went to the bathroom again… Only to find horror.

The spider was floating motionless in the commode bowl. As far as I could tell, it was already dead. No idea if it slipped or if it jumped or what. So I flushed it down the drain and I was again alone in my house.

Kinda bummed me out.

Maybe I’m just getting delirious from almost 3 months of living in Shizuoka without making friends, but I felt legitimately a little upset that this spider in my bathroom was already gone. My little buddy that I’m secretly terrified of.

This article exists to mourn that spider. Nobody else in existence ever even saw it, but I’ll remember it. Thanks for eating all those fruit flies.