WARNING: This post has nothing to do with computers. Think of it as a community service.

Last Friday after work in the evening I decided it was time to get the sprinkler system working again.

Let me begin by saying that I am terrible with plumbing. I can frame a house, lay a hardwood floor and do any electrical work you need. I can even program an old VCR. What I cannot do, however, is anything related to water. Seriously – don’t even put me in charge of your fish tank unless you enjoy Sushi.

That said, however, the sprinkler system is usually just a matter of plugging in the system and opening/closing the right valves in the right order. Well, I thought I had everything working, but it still wasn’t working. In fact, the sprinkler box was flooding. So, I popped the top off using a flat-head screwdriver and my fingernails and thew the lid aside. While I was waiting for the water to drain out of the box, I happened to see something out of the corner of my eye. There, in one of the pockets on the underside of the sprinkler box lid sat the following:

Now at this time, she was not in a jar and she was not moving. I wasn’t sure she was alive. The only thing I knew for sure was that it was a very large, very black widow-looking spider. I slowly backed away shaking and slack-jawed. After about 15 seconds of that, I calmed myself and had one thought; have to kill it. I found a bottle of insect killer, sprayed her and validated that she was, in fact, still alive. I then dumped most of the bottle on her, effectively trapping her in one of the pockets of the lid. She was still moving in the liquid, so I found a bucked and placed it flat side down on top of her pocket so that she would eventually drown overnight. I know what your thinking – what a horrible death! My counter to that is to ask her little insect friends what they thought of her just before she drank their blood, or ask her husband – probably still digesting – his thoughts.

The point to all of this is that they like dark, damp places. My hand was inches from her. I have two very curious kids who play in our yard. Be careful where you put your hands.