The Life of Clarence

We've had a house guest the past few weeks.  A spider has taken up residence in the window above the sink in our kitchen.  He spun a beautiful web in a picturesque and out of the way location next to a potted succulent plant and we decided we'd let him stay.  For me, I liked looking at his web, I was excited that he might be the final solution for the fruit flies, and I was hoping he would help Sara get over her fear of spiders.  I named him Clarence.  

Clarence has been quite the trooper.  When he first moved in we were dealing with the last of a fruit fly issue.  Clarence took care of that right quick.  In fact, he even caught himself a large house fly (as big as he was).  He's often dealt with disturbances to his web.  He'll often attach the bottom of the web to our tomatoes on the window sill.  When they get moved they do significant damage to the web.  Interestingly, he never seems to rebuild the web until the next morning.  After a week he disappeared for 3 days but then one morning had spun up a whole new web.  He seems pretty content here and well fed. 

I mentioned the fruit fly problem.  When Clarence first took up residence in the window he did so right above our other attempted solution to the problem, a glass of port covered with plastic wrap with small holes punched in it.  Now, this glass of port did wonders in it's own right.  After it's first 24 hours there were at least 30 fruit flies drowned in port (not a bad way to go out if you ask me).

But once Clarence took up residence I couldn't help but identify with the fruit flies a little bit.  In fact, at one point I went so far as to imagine that the fruit flies had been on some difficult or exotic mission - perhaps a war against other fruit flies and now, on their way home, the fruit flies felt themselves besieged by every manner of danger.  Death was on all sides.  Large two eyed beings my swat them, they could find themselves snacking on some remnants of food in the large metal vat only to find themselves drowned in a deluge of water.  Some might smell the sweet nectar of port and then, drunk on only a tiny droplet they would be unable to find their way out.  And now, this, a sticky web with an 8 legged monster.  The journey of these fruit flies was downright Odysseun.  And, perhaps like Odysseus, only one poor, lone fruit fly survived the journey home while all of his fellow fruit flies perished.  

And then I came to my senses and realized that I sure as hell hope not.  I hope Clarence ate every last one of those hell-borne bugs.  

But now, we are drawing near to the end of Clarence's time with us.  We've had some laughs and shared meals (we ate different things - but we were both in the kitchen eating food so that seems to count, right?) but the fruit fly problem is gone.  Sara has said three times over the past week "I think it's time for Clarence to move."  I agree with her but am not eager to see him go.  And, Sara's still scared of spiders so it seems unlikely that she'll be the one to move Clarence out.  I guess it's on me.  Maybe I'll let him hang out until Halloween - that seems fitting.