Ed pulled our last bottle of water off the shelf and was about to open it when I noticed a huge spider on the side of the bottle. Huge, as in a leg span of 2 inches. Huge for a Canadian to see.

Now, I love insects. I used to collect them when I was little and still have a thing about petting caterpillars (except for the poisonous ones in Japan, I didn’t pet those).

Insects love my husband Ed. They think he’s tasty. He’s my own personal bug repellant because they’d rather bite him than me.

So what went through my brain when I saw the huge spider on the water bottle Ed was holding was Huge spider. Some spiders are poisonous. Bugs like to bite Ed.

When I pointed out the spider it of course started rushing for Ed’s hand. But I ran to the door, opened it, and Ed started to attempt to shake the spider off the bottle. It skittered towards his hand again so he dropped the bottle on the cement step.

At some point during the descent of the water bottle the spider must have moved to the base of the bottle because when the bottle landed completely upright (which was kind of funny in and of itself) the spider was squashed beneath it.

Spider problem solved. Ed did not add a spider bite to his collection of other bugs bites from Mexico.

We brought our suitcases to the front porch of the hotel and while waiting for our shuttle continued to giggle about the spider. So I went back to our room to take a picture of the squashed spider and all I found was one of its legs. In the short time between the squashing and the moving of the suitcases something had eaten the spider.

I turned to walk back to the front entrance of the hotel and saw a number of gorgeous birds sitting on one of the fences in the courtyard. They were black with bright yellow feet, beaks, and eyes. As I moved closer and attempted to take a photo they took flight and I saw that their backs were a striking aquamarine blue. They flew into one of the trees and from below all I could see was their black bellies and very little of their brightness. (I just looked them up and they were Yucatan Jays

I’m sure one of them appreciated their freshly squashed breakfast that morning.