Gerald the Very, Very Large Spider

In San Francisco, you don't get much wildlife. Occasionally, you get a feral male cat who likes to bite defenseless 3-legged kitties, and lots of pigeons, but that's about it. The only genuine wildlife we get here in this city are hobos. They range from gargantuan to sickly skinny, fully toothed to toothless and every age from 16 to 80. It's bizarre, the wide variety of hobo. There are seasonal, varietal hobos as well as hobos whose public frequency is dependent on temperatures. 

Knowing my luck, however, I was bound to stumble upon something not many people get to have. And as my luck would have it, that something had eight legs. And large mandibles. 


Gerald. 

Gerald was a spider. More than that, Gerald was the spider who decided it would be a smashing good idea to set up shop in my window sill. The cats paced anxiously on the other side of the window, mewing at him. He didn't seem bothered, but I'm sure he had a tough exterior which only coated the soft, loving spider he was deep down. He had all his legs, all his eyes (I think) and a very impressive set of pointy teeth-things. And he was big. He was also an attention whore.


Gerald was disconcertingly placed in my window ledge, and would often look down on me as I slept. His pointy leg-hairs and the creepy way he spun his web all made me rest easier knowing I had him to watch over me. This one time, Pharrah decided she wanted to eat Gerald; I recalled  her back inside, but her tail caught the bottom of Gerald's web, and she took it with her. Gerald managed to salvage the rest of the web, and in the morning, a very disgruntled spider was re-spinning his web. He hated Pharrah ever since. Pharrah had it out for him, specially when I began to take pictures of him...


I would come home from work to make sure Gerald was still there-- talking to him, checking to make sure he had eaten. Boy he was HUGE. And a little creepy. 


And then, one day, when I woke up... Gerald was gone. He literally packed his web up and flew the coop. I don't know if the cats ate him, if I had accidentally swallowed him when he went to hug me good bye, or... what... but he was gone. :-( No web, no Gerald, no nothin'. 


I like to think Gerald finally got that job promotion he'd been going on about and moved out into the suburbs where he could finally buy a house, get a dog and meet a nice lady-spider (or male spider...) and live a quiet life. Maybe he would pick up Shakespearean acting in his off-work time, join a nice Masons group or get a part time job in the mall during the holidays as Santa Claus. 

Now I feel better about potentially swallowing him. Goodie!