Tikkabik

Spiders get along very well on Cape Cod. I understand it's a combination of soil, climate and native flora and fauna that make this environment almost ideal for them. There are myriad species that populate the Cape from the Provincetown Monument to the Sagamore Bridge, apparently.

Most of them live in my house.

For some reason -- perhaps it's our wooded back yard -- we have a lot of spiders. And lately, as it's gotten colder and wetter, they've decided to take up residence in the house.

We're not talking about little tiny spiders that would get lost on your pinky fingernail. We're not talking tarantulas, either. But seeing spiders whose leg span would easily cover a half-dollar piece is not at all unusual.

Despite their alien nature and occasionally painful though exceedingly rare bite, Bonnie and I have no fear of spiders. In fact, we have a pathological loathing of insects that makes us appreciate the spiders for what they are -- ravenous insectovores that would happily paralyze, cocoon, liquify and suck dry to husks the multi-legged, chitinous vermin that populate the dark corners of our home. That's not say we're bug infested by any stretch, but it's like keeping a cat around if you've got the occasional rodent -- it's a checks-and-balances sort of thing.

So it's live and let live for spiders in the Cohen home, but when they get too big for their britches, we invite them to live outside instead, rather than squishing them. Bob caught a nice big one this morning inside of a card tin and brought it down to me; I promptly dumped him out on the porch outside the kitchen.

He'll probably be back inside by next week, building a Web somewhere in my office.