It dawned on me the other day, much like it does every morning when the sun comes up.

No, wait a minute…I think that I had wanted to actually make a statement of some kind back there, not just a commentary on daylight streaming through our bedroom window. Now what the heck WAS the commentary??

Oh yeah!

It dawned on me (much later in the day, long after sunrise as a matter of fact) that we don’t seem to have any spiders here in Calgary. At least not any which are visible in the interior of our home.

That is in stark contrast to our last home, in the Okanagan Valley of British Columbia. We pretty much shared our home with spiders of every possible make and model. Not only were “Daddy Long Legs” spiders a common sight when you peered into a corner of the living room, there were also these hairy beasts called “wolf spiders”. Wolf spiders are like the Navy Seals of the arachnid world, buff and hairy, with tattoos and attitude. I can’t say that they are any more dangerous than an unlit birthday candle, but just spotting one hanging in a corner of the ceiling instantly sends shivers down your spine. Our timbers were often shivered by those intruders, I will admit.

Mrs. That Dan Guy is not one to enjoy a spider spotting. She’s probably queasy just reading this post today (in that case, my work here is done). But she bravely put up with these creepy crawlers back in Kelowna, because there really was no alternative, aside from wearing a bubble suit. And believe me, it’s not like she didn’t try THAT route…

We even had Black Widow spiders in our area of the country. More often in heavily wooded areas, but also occasionally in small dark spaces, like the nest that an exterminator found under the siding in our home one summer while spraying for ants. I kept that little nugget a secret for a few years, until one night out at a gathering with some friends a few suds loosened my lips, and somehow it just came out.

The efforts for a bubble suit intensified shortly after THAT verbal faux pas…

Oh well, water under the fridge, as they say. We’re here now, and we seem to have left the spiders of the world behind us. I’m sure they provide some valuable role in the eco-system, but we’re much happier not knowing how they go about it…

Chow for now!!