Ok, I've been slacking on posting the full story of this battle. Obviously it's burned in my brain, so I still remember it like yesterday, and I can still recall every single detail. So take a seat around the campfire, kids, and listen up.
It was a dark, stormy night (not really), as the 4runner door slowly squeaked open. I clicked on my headlamp, and slowly peered around the door. What awaited my eyes could only be described as sheer terror, manifested in a spider's body.
This wasn't the spiders first rodeo, however, and she easily discerned my master plan, so she beat a hasty retreat up into the depths of my dash. "No matter, as I have a plan formulated by the master of T4R write-ups that is going to lure you back down into my clutches, and I will end you," I whispered. I then thought it was weird that I was talking to a spider, so I quit that shit pronto.
Ok, game plan: find a moth, put moth into web of spider, kill spider. Should be simple enough! I looked around for a moth, but there were none in sight. It wasn't late enough yet for them to be out. I'm a master adapter though, so I came up with a new plan. I've played the guitar at least once in my life, and I knew I could play the spiders web to the melody of a stuck moth, fluttering in the web. This should fool the spider into coming down, expecting a tasty treat, and that's when I'll make my move.
I donned the welding gloves (look, we've already established that I'm a little b***h when it comes to spiders, I wasn't about to stick my bare hands into the web). I started playing the web like a guitar, or a banjo, or some other stringed instrument. But apparently my previous one time that I played the guitar was not sufficient, because this spider couldn't give a shit that I was sitting there, looking like a complete fool, strumming its hastily made webs.
This plan sucked. It was time to wait until the moths came out and try the original plan. Fast forward an hour or two, and I'm sitting inside when I notice a moth flying around. It almost felt like cheating, having a moth come to me like that, but if an opportunity presents itself, who am I to deny it? Capturing it was easy, I just got a red solo cup, and then I filled it up... with a little moth.
I quickly took the moth outside, threw open the 4runner door, and violently shook the cup in the general direction of the web--and proceeded to watch the moth completely miss the 4runner, and fall to the ground. I'm not the best at moth-throwing, obviously, so I picked it up and gave it a little flick towards the web. Let me tell you, this spider SUCKED at web building! The moth went straight through the web and landed on the floor mat:
Now I was just mad at this spider. This little lazy ass spider wants to come into MY 4runner, and build a half-assed web that can't even contain a FREE HANDOUT?! I had to woo-sah to calm myself down and let logic take over again.
So maybe that moth was too big of a moth. I needed to find a smaller one. This was accomplished in about 2.5 seconds, and I quickly,
lightly tossed that one into the spiders web. And yet again, it went right through! Now I'm fuming. This spider must expect me to serve it the moth on a silver platter, right up into the dash where she must be chilling on a web-couch, watching a repeat of Arachnophobia! Nope, not having it. I completely destroyed it's web (it was obviously a shit web anyway) and came up with yet another new plan.
This time, I was just going to wait a little while, then sneak back out and try to catch the spider in the act of rebuilding the web (if you can even call it that).
So, fast forward another hour or so, and I get suited up for what I'm hoping is the final battle. I grab the spatula, raid, headlamp, and welding gloves, and go back out there.
I knew I had to be quick, because the spider was definitely on to me now and would certainly crawl back up into the dash as soon as I opened the door. I turn on my headlamp, give the raid can a couple good shakes, quickly throw open the door, acquire the target in my sight, and spray directly at the spider... and the spider still got away! She climbed back up into the dash, flipping me the bird on her way up, I'm sure of it!
I was done at this point. I reached for the gasoline and the lighter, but right as I was about to start dousing the 4runner, I saw the spider fall straight out of the dash, onto the floor mat. I summoned up my ninja skills and gave the raid can another shake while simultaneously spraying it onto the flailing spider body (and everywhere else in that general vicinity), while swooping in from the other direction with the spatula to cut off the spiders retreat web, and bam! Spider is dead, as seen in the picture a couple posts up.
Cliff notes:
I killed the b***h.