ACCORDING to the internet, most spiders can live for a couple of years.
This piece of trivia has been keeping me awake for the past few nights, as it has suddenly taken on a significance hitherto undreamt of.

It all began last weekend, when I was preparing the food for The Princess’s birthday party.
As well as the usual ham sarnies and bowls of crisps, I thought it wise to offer the little darlings a few choices of fruit to cater for the more health-conscious among them.
Unzipping a bag of seedless white grapes to go with the cherries and strawberries already in the bowl, I suddenly noticed a spider on the worksurface, which I was certain had been empty beforehand.
Around half an inch across, it was not your usual British house spider.
Its round body was sort of whitey, yellowy green – precisely the same shade as the grapes sitting in the bag.
Whoops.
Before I could do more than look at it in dawning realisation and not a little horror, it scuttled under the worksurface on top of the dishwasher, before running along into the cupboard under the sink.
Damn.
Knowing it was not a good thing to have unidentified spiders, origins unknown, loose in your house, I immediately did what any self-respecting survival expert would do. I called pathetically for help.
Soon-To-Be-Ex-Husband, who had come along for the party, adopted the ‘blitz it and hope it dies’ approach. Grabbing a can of fly spray, he emptied it into the cupboard where Spidey had last been seen.
The rest of the day was spent ushering small children away from the offending area, coughing and spluttering our way past the still seething cupboard.
Spidey has not been seen since, though the smell of Raid still lingers.
Internet research brings up a plethora of stories about deadly black widows being found in bags of grapes. Thankfully, I know it wasn’t one of those (wrong colour, though a colleague’s suggestion that it could have been an albino was not met with amusement).
Unfortunately, I’ve no idea what country the grapes came from (there was nothing on the bag apart from ‘white seedless grapes.’ Very informative, I’m sure.)
The closest match I’ve been able to find is a yellow sac spider, found in America as well as Europe, and often found on grape vines.
Unfortunately again, this prime suspect is labelled as aggressive and ‘medically significant,’ having a nasty bite that can often lead to tissue death (ie, a big hole in the bitten area).
And it likes to hide in warm places. Like cupboards. And clothes.
Anyone know the name of a local spider exterminator?

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