Spiders from Mars.

There we were, complaining about 2020, as if once we got through that stupid and miserable year everything would be better. Instead we got worse government, psychotic Russian warmongering, Canadian dictatorship (!), and now, gigantic parachuting spiders.

I get the feeling that this decade is going to suck pretty hard all the way to the end.

The spiders in question are the Joro spider, a brightly colored nightmare that comes to us from Asia, like so many bad and really weird things. According to the New York Post, from whence I borrowed the alarming photo below, "The massive Joro spider, an invasive species from Asia, has descended on southern states — particularly Georgia and South Carolina — and is now due to spread rapidly to Alabama, according to the University of Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology."

Surely such a huge bug would never survive our northern winters, right? That's for tropical places, the price they pay (along with cyclones) for gorgeous weather. But no, according to spiderologists: "The spiders were exposed to below-freezing temperatures for minutes at a time — about as long as they’d need to find a warm place to hide."

And what's this about parachuting?

"Indeed, bug-watchers have spotted the Joro using their webs as parachutes, transporting them by wind."

Uh-huh. 

I'm not a victim of arachnophobia, in that I am not panicked thinking about spiders or go into frozen terror looking at one. I know what phobias feel like, being inclined to acrophobia, and my feeling about giant spiders is not like that. However, I have a strong repulsion from giant spiders, and this one looks particularly bad. The Joro has a minor venom that isn't a real danger to humans, unless one has an allergic reaction.

I do not intend to let one of these bastards get close enough to me to find out.

Research scientist Andy Davis says, “People should try to learn to live with them. If they’re literally in your way, I can see taking a web down and moving them to the side, but they’re just going to be back next year.”

And I say: No. I say: I'm going to murder every one that I see. I say: These arachnid sons of bitches had better turn out to be a bigger bust than the murder hornets. And if not, I say: Nuke them from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.