Those Pesky Pests!

"Eeeeek!" screamed Mrs Farty, "a spider!" Yet again, Mr Farty was obliged to interrupt his life's work (ok, his blogging) in order to dispatch the eight-legged freak.

"That does it!" she exclaimed. "I have had it with these flipping spiders in this flipping house!"¹ Picking up the paper, she riffled through to the small ads.

"Here it is! PestXit^TM. We need it. Right now! Besides, the Joneses already have it, and I'm not about to be outdone by those snooty snobs."

<clickety click> "Have you seen how much these things cost?" asked Mr Farty, one eye always on his wallet.

"I don't care, it'll be worth it to get rid of the little monsters once and for all." And it was settled. The order was duly placed.

A few days later, the box arrived and the decision came, which room to put it in? "The range appears to be wide enough to cover the whole house, let's plug it in the bedroom for maximum effect."

And sure enough, for a few weeks the house seemed remarkably clear, not just of spiders, but also flies, bees, wasps, bluebottles², sparrows, lions, elephants and whales...although we were still plagued by giraffes.

But then evolution must have kicked in, because before you could say Shelob, nature had filled the vacuum with the biggest, hairiest spider Mr Farty had ever seen. And guess where it had spun its web?

Yep, right on top of the PestXit^TM. The bastarding critter was right in the middle, basking in the glow of the "operational" light. It was almost as if it was laughing at the irony of the situation.

Wonder if Mr Farty can get his money back?

¹ Or words to that effect.
² In the UK, these are like big, noisy flies, not to be confused with the nasty stinging jellyfish.