Authors note: This is a reprisal of a column I wrote in the 1990s for the Moultrie News. Given that this is the middle of banana spider season, I thought it worth a reprint.

If you suffer from arachnophobia, a fear of spiders, stop reading now. If you suffer from Mondayphobia, or whatever a "fear of Mondays" is rightfully called, definitely stop reading now.

There are 180 banana spiders living in my yard. I know because I counted. One-hundred-and-eighty professional, tarantula-sized web-weavers who have diligently (and artfully) draped spider silk from every bush, tree and inanimate object they deem suitable as an anchor for their strong and elaborate webs. My front and back doors are particularly favored and no amount of attacks with a broom stops them from rebuilding. Apparently the bug hunting in these spots, especially at night when the porch lights are on, is too good to give up.

If you don't know what a banana spider is, these are large and, in their arachnoid way, beautiful spiders -- with black-and gold striped legs and a long yellowish body. They are harmless outdoor spiders, usually seen in the woods or on a front porch with similar woodsy characteristics, like mine. I'm not alone in this gracious plenty of banana spiders. I understand that a friend of mine, a woman from Isle of Palms who is so "girly" I find this almost impossible to believe, actually resorts to scissors. Each morning, she dutifully cuts apart the tough new webs the spiders have woven across her door without harming the spiders.

Some are small, insignificant things (I've been told these are the males) hardly larger than a mosquito. Others are magnificent, two-and three-inchers, females whose tiger-striped markings glisten with a menacing beauty in the sunlight. The silk they produce is incredibly strong and all manner of objects can get hung up in their webs, from insects (which are why they're such good spiders to have around) to a small chicken bone which Belle the Dog probably robbed from the garbage can. How it made it to a spider web is beside the point. This particular spider is very large and fat.

Some live in comfortable singularity, majestic and plump, residing alone in the center of their own personal, well-tended web. Others apparently enjoy the gregarious life and share their webs with an entire community of banana spiders, each busily attending its own subdivision in Spiderville.

No, I have not attacked them with a can of Raid. Why? Because they do good duty. They eat mosquitoes. Still, accidentally walking into one of their webs is just plain ghastly.

And that is how I started Monday.

I had put the coffee on and was going out to get the paper hardly out the door before I found myself enmeshed in a banana spider web which had not been there eight hours previously. There's nothing, not anything, like starting a day with your hair and face swathed in the thick, gummy, clinging, sticky and downright ghoulish net of banana spider web.

Could anything be worse?

Yes. All I can say is, at least I was wearing shoes. Suffice to say that it was dead, mouselike, a cat leftover perfectly camouflaged on the Oriental rug. When I accidentally stepped on it and this was a forceful, rapid step since I was charging my way toward the shower to divest myself of the spider web on my head it made a sudden, awful "POP!" I will leave out the gory particulars of what happens to the insides when you step hard on a dead, partially-eaten mouse. It not only requires cleaning the floor, but a section of the wall.

As I look back, this explains why the cats, Belle and the visiting dog were all so quiet. Why they were clustered in a tight, silent circle in the living room instead of underfoot in the kitchen while I started the coffee.

A word about the visiting dog. His name is Jammer and he is a small, white, curly-coated Benji type of dog, the epitome of the word cute. He spends his day with my dog, Belle, since his owners, good friends of mine, both work and haven't found a suitable way to keep the dog secure in their own banana spider-filled, backyard. Jammer (a.k.a. "the cute little white dog formerly known as Joe") was retrieved from the pound, having been given up for adoption because his previous owner considered the dog uncontrollable and "hyperactive."

Jammer comes to the house every morning clean and white and smelling of his mistress's perfume. Jammer usually leaves dirty and, sometimes, wet. Despite their disparity in size and color (Belle is a large black Labrador retriever) the two dogs are best friends. Hyperactive? Heck, the dog just needed play time. Uncontrollable? He is also spending his days with four cats larger than he is.

Today, Jammer is going to go home clean. Either that, or Jammer will smell like the dead thing on the rug. Jammer may look like a pampered priss, but he's all dog.

The sequence went like this.

I stepped, the mouse popped and, in a flash, the cute little white dog rolled in the dead thing.

Ah, Mondays! Ain't life grand?

Suzannah Smith Miles is a local author, illustrator and historian. Keep an eye out for her history columns monthly.

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