Lumpy's Gift

You may remember the acquisition of our Lumpy Tree that I wrote about. We had Lumpy for a couple weeks before we saw her miraculous gift. On Christmas morning we woke up to see one side of Lumpy covered in a spider web. I don’t mean, “Oh, look at the cute little spider web!”  If there’s such a thing. No, I mean, “Who spread the fake Halloween web all over the tree?” Seriously. So foul. Our hardworking Lumpy Spider had spent all Christmas Eve building us a web, but we couldn’t find any words in it, so clearly it was not Charlotte the spider. Lumpy Tree had given us a gift. It was a Christmas miracle?

We weren’t home very long on Christmas day--  just long enough to open presents, Skype with Idaho and Ecuador, and then head out for a day with family. The spider wouldn’t leave the tree, right? He couldn’t bite us if we weren’t home…we’d take the tree out the next day. Just be cool, everyone. And please just let Lumpy Spider be a boy and not a pregnant mom.

The next morning I started undecorating Lumpy, but Brian was sick and slept a lot of the morning. I could not haul that giant tree out by myself so I just waited. We were sitting at the dining room table when Clark pointed up at the light and said, “Look Mom, there are bugs on our ceiling.” Yes. There. Were. Hundreds of tiny spiders, each about the size of a pen tip, were on a web from the vent at one side of the ceiling to the light in the middle of the ceiling. I tried not to vomit as I vacuumed them up and emptied the vacuum out. Later Brian woke up and took the tree out in segments and we cleaned up the needles. Then in a lampshade in the living room we found more of Lumpy’s gift—more tiny spider babies. And Lumpy’s gift continues.

We definitely will never forget Lumpy Tree and Lumpy Spider.  Now every tiny speck I see I aggressively wipe out. Damn that mutant tree.

Lumpy's web

Lumpy Spider's offspring

More of Lumpy's Gift