Sunday May 18, 2025: A Small Moment of Delight

A Daddy Long legs!

Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully. Occasionally, I will also publish some of my shorter fiction in this newsletter to read for free.

Daily Diary, Day 1719:

I know that some, well, possibly most of you, will not understand why I have been finding a moment of delight about the small spider in this photo who has taken up residence in the corner of my downstairs bathroom. I almost called it a powder room—such an anachronistic word, given that I don’t believe I have ever in my life used face powder.

I believe this spider is a daddy long legs, a kind of spider I first encountered when I was young. While occasionally they could be found in other parts of the house I grew up in, mostly they made their home in the house’s cellar. My parents called them daddy long legs, but when I looked them up recently, I wasn’t surprised to see the alternative name for them is cellar spider, although the official name is Pholcidae.

There were lots of daddy long legs in that cellar of ours, and my parents reassured me that they were harmless (now confirmed by the research), so I’ve always rather enjoyed when I ran across them, assuming they were helping keep down insects—especially those annoying little gnats that sometimes appear in houses. They don’t make organized spider webs, rather a few disorganized strands in a corner, which in my memory meant that over time they became the source of cobwebs in that basement and other places I have lived in.

However, I hadn’t run across them very often in our current house (probably because my mother trained me to always run a duster along the corners of every room when I clean.) And now I can’t help but wonder if she wasn’t such a fanatic about this because of the crop of daddy long legs growing down in our cellar!

Anyway, months ago one of these spiders took up residence in the downstairs bathroom, and I carefully did not dust in that corner of the room. I also thought about writing about him (for some reason I decided it was a male that I called Edgar.) But he disappeared before I could take a photo. I doubt whether this is current spider is Edgar returned from some journey, but you never know. And when I looked up daddy long legs—the websites on this spider said they can live up to two years.

In truth, spiders in general, as long as they aren’t too big, have never frightened me. I assume this is not just because of the benign daddy long legs, but also because Charlotte’s Web was my favorite books as a small child. Consequently, if a spider is small, and looks like Charlotte, I tend to try to get them on something so I can take them outside. Or, if they are too far away from a door, I might just let them stay.

The most common of these small spiders that I find in the house, they are black and tend to jump when startled) appear to be what is called a bold jumping spider (official name Phidippus audax.)

About three months agothere was one of these very tiny (only about an eighth of an inch) spiders that was on the window next to where I sit in the guest room to take my phone calls. I just let her stay, and like Edgar, one day she was just gone.

However, if I encounter a spider that is too big (over the size of a quarter) or is brown (we have brown recluse spiders in this area—very poisonous), then I say a little apology and squish them.

But never a daddy longleg, even if they are fairly large. First of all, they are usually way up high, in the corner of a room, so aren’t even inconvenient in terms of worrying about stepping on them accidently. Second, I would be afraid I would break one of their legs if I tried to move them. And third…well, I just like them.

So, as a result, yesterday when this daddy long-legs reappeared (I would like to think it is Edgar returned) I had a definite small moment of delight.

How do the rest of you feel about spiders? Have any favorites?

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