Hide in a hole. Compress legs and abdomen into as small a crevice as possible. Look out with one eye. Scan for an insect, any in season will do, fly, aphid, distant spider relative, anything already dead. Cower a bit as a shadow crosses the gap of the bolthole. False alarm, bird but outside the window. Must remember that I am a predator but also prey to larger creatures. Some movement detected across the carpet. Ladybird. Bright colour but can be hard and chewy, slow to overwhelm and can be a bit heavy in the web. Disregard unless desperate. Same goes for those armoured woodlice. In retrospect not a very good hole. Try another position on the other side of the room. Some human forms but still. Go, Go, Go. Short spurt, stop, look, dash to foot of sofa, clear path to rug edge, wait, now, no wait, now, no, yes.
The humans shout in unison "Spider, big spider-dad do something" Expectant glances towards the male of the family. Some reluctance to raise body from comfortable chair. Quick calculated assessment of spider hunting equipment. Resort to sound and trusted wine glass. Drain last contents and then carefully lower the crystal bell over the panic stricken but also annoyed arachnid. Grateful acknowledgement all round. "Good catch dad".
Leave for a couple of minutes listening for the frantic scrabblings of the black blur in the trap. Slide newspaper between the carpet and glass. The patter of eight legs can be felt through 32 pages of print.
One last victory dance for dad and a display of the catch to a screaming and relieved audience.
The policy of dad is repatriation for spiders so a bare-foot walk down the front path and a short flick of the
glass and paper to release the spider onto the pavement.
The spider stretches and runs in zig zag.No glance back or adversarial taunt.
Hide in a hole.
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