The Anal Spider

Last week I noticed a large, precisely-woven orb web with an unusual spider between two shrubs outside my office. The spider was interestingly colored, not a variety I'd seen before. I watched her sitting in the center of the web, and wished I could see her move, so I picked a piece of the cedar shrub and tossed it into the web. Well, she moved. She moved fast, and rather petulantly, and immediately went over to the little sprig of cedar and began dismantling the web around it. She then picked up the sprig, which was larger than she was, and rather annoyingly dropped it onto the ground below the web, and then went back to her perch, as if to say, "Sheesh! You build a web, and someone has to mess it up!" Just her attitude and her actions made me think of an irritated clean-freak, with a touch of OCD. I was rather abashed. I felt bad that I had messed up her web, and self-consciously apologized to her for it. I think she actually crossed her arms and gave me a "look".

We also have a large thistle growing near this web. It's blooming and thistledown is everywhere. Later that afternoon, I noticed that the spider web had more than a few of those little puffy thistle seeds (you know the kind--they look like the things you blow off of a dandelion head) caught in its threads. The spider had attempted to pick them out of her web, each time, dismantling more and more of the orb web in the process. I felt rather sorry for her. She obviously wanted a pristine house, and was losing the battle. This thistle is making so many of the seed puffs that it's almost impossible to go into our front office door without disturbing them--like walking through powdery snowdrifts. The poor anal spider had her work cut out for her.

The next day, the web was gone. Only a strand or two remained. She had given up and lost the fight to keep her house clean. So I thought. I didn't see any more of her until this Monday when I came to work and found that she had built a new web, in the same place, all clean and precise just like before. She looked satisfied and smug as she sat in the center of her nice, new, clean web. This time she would win the battle. Before the afternoon was out, however, the thistle seeds were back, and covered the web again. You could just see her shoulders slump, her head hang a little lower, and a tiny tear form in the corner of her compound eye.

But a couple hours later, the web was clean again. Never underestimate the power of the female need to be tidy.