WARNING: Disturbing Images to Follow

Nobody told me about the spiders.

Having left behind Rexburg's old basement apartments with bad weather stripping, I was looking forward to an autumn free from arachnoparanoia (scanning the the ceiling and corners, shaking out my shoes before putting them on, lifting piles of laundry with caution -- i.e., CONSTANT VIGILANCE). Sure, I figured a vile little eight-legged beast might put in an occasional appearance, but after six years of Idaho's monster hobos and catfaces, I didn't think tame, temperate, jolly old England would have anything I couldn't handle.

Au contraire. From day one, we were shocked by the number of thick, sticky, placemat-sized webs we saw stretched in shrubs, under trees, on street signs, inside phone booths, behind park benches... we were surrounded. These "garden spiders" are fat (about quarter-sized) and hideous, but fortunately they have that awkward, stripey look that makes them tolerable -- from a safe distance.

Our first day on campus, we spotted the mangled corpse of what appeared to be a small rodent in the middle of a busy sidewalk. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be what is known as a "wolf spider," so named for its propensity to scavenge dead mice and birds, and for their preference of stalking and attacking prey over web-building. Grateful though I am to know that they will, in fact, die if stepped on, Kathleen raised good points: Why would a spider presume to stroll down a human sidewalk as if he owned it? And what prey would such a predatory animal be hunting on said sidewalk? Perhaps we're better off not knowing.

And then there was the still-unidentified black spider behind the rubbish bin. I spotted it winding a fly in its lugubrious coils, and couldn't help but watch for a few seconds in mute horror. The thing was twice the size of a hobo, jet black, with shiny, muscular limbs. I won't even try to find a photo of it online. As Kathleen said, it's just plain wrong when spiders have biceps.