Predator at the Door

I won't lie to you. As soon as I found a boyfriend, I stopped killing bugs. Sure, I could still kill my own bugs (by "kill," I actually mean "draft a carefully worded detente understood by me and the bug granting the bug all rights of access to my home and yard provided said bug will not take up residence inside my shoes, fall on my head in the middle of the night or appear in glasses of red wine"). But I don't want to kill bugs, and I don't have to now. I see it as one of the best perks to dating.

But, every so often, I stumble on a bug that I can't even ask the Significant Other [SO] to kill. Pictured is one such bug.

This is the actual spider that spun a web outside my back door (while I won't ask the SO to kill all bugs, I will ask him to photograph them). The spider is huge. His butt is bulbous (which I interpret as being full of poison -- I CAN do science). And he has very long legs leading me to believe that he could outrun me if necessary (not really a challenge, but still).

I keep the SO from this bug mainly because I don't want to be charged with manslaughter in his death by arachnid. (Is "poverty" a viable courtroom plea yet? Bug spray ain't cheap, after all.)

I also think dating is hard enough without having to explain on one's match.com profile how they sacrificed their last boyfriend to a killer spider because unemployment made paying an exterminator out of the question. 

Addendum: It turns out that my spider is actually a completely harmless and very common breed known as a garden spider. Unfortunately, fact does not keep the creepy crawly from scaring the bejesus out of me.