Rise of the Planet of the Spiders

I'm starting to review my laissez faire attitude towards spiders. Some time ago while cleaning out my apartment I swept away a whole bunch of cobwebs. I felt so guilt stricken at the thought of homeless spiders that I resolved never to do it again. The trouble with making a concession like that is that it doesn't take long for the scuttly little beggars to start taking advantage. The other night I was ironing some shirts when a spider the size of a small dog crawled out from the sleeve of the shirt I was ironing and ran across the ironing board. I say ran but it walked, nay strolled, in a leisurely fashion as though it knew it had nothing to fear. I'm pleased to say I did not succumb to my baser instincts and kill it. Indeed, I gently escorted it out onto my balcony. At least that's what I did once I had got down off the counter and stopped screaming like a girl. Once on the balcony I'm sure the spider waited two seconds until I had my back turned and then nipped back inside. Putting my boots on in the morning has become quite the adventure.

My recent moment of terror notwithstanding I can't help feeling that as a species we are under utilising our spider resources. Let's face it, there are millions of the little things out there and with a certain amount of genetic modification we could have food animals forever. There would be no more arguments over the Sunday roast, everybody would get a drumstick and if anybody was bad they could get the poison sac. If anybody gets a little squeamish about eating spider we could market it as "land calamari". The more I think of it the more I think this idea has legs (sorry). Just think of the benefits that would accrue from having the country overrun with giant spiders. For starters all our other problems would be put nicely in perspective.

There is the possibility that giant spiders may well have other roles to fill as well. With a little training they would make a great children's ride at fairgrounds or we could turn them upside down and use them as jumping castles. Australia could export giant spiders to the world. If they learn to swim we may export them whether other countries want them or not. Then there are the extra jobs that would be created in the spider wrangler, spider tamer and, of course, rogue spider hunter industries. Five percent unemployment? Forget it, we should be able to get that down to one or two percent, particularly if we run out of spider food.

Finally, and this is very important, if spiders were the size of large donkeys there would be much less chance of them popping out of the sleeves of peoples shirts and scaring the crap out of innocent ironers.