I love the smell of Ortho in the morning.

It's taken a while but I finally found a good reason why it sucks to be a guy.

When I discovered this reason I was standing out on our back patio in my underpants talking on the phone with a friend and making plans for meet up for an afternoon beer. Welcome to the baller lifestyle.

While I was out there I made the mistake of peeking into a set of doors that are never opened. Much to my surprise I discovered a Black Widow had moved in and set up shop.

Here's a closer look. Apologies for the lack of focus but I was keeping my distance, thank you very much.

Back in the last century, I had to deal with a similar critter situation but since I'm now a refined gentleman I couldn't exactly challenge my girlfriend to a Wild Turkey fueled Madden battle. And yes, I still have Madden '94.

It was time to step up and be a man.

Quickly, these options came to mind.

1) Make a Mexican Flamethrower and take care of business like I mean business. The only drawback here was the possibility of house catching fire.

2) Get Sigourney Weaver on the horn and see if she had anything going on. She did an admirable job of kicking ass in Aliens and this Black Widow was a little smaller than the queen alien so it should be a walk in the park for her.

3) Hose the spider down with the most toxic chemicals I could find then go meet my friend and hope it's dead by the time I return. The only hitch to this plan is that all the nasty stuff under the sink is non-toxic and biodegradable. Boo.

4) Squash it with a broom. Sounded like a good idea until I tested out the strength of its bristles. Yeah, not such a hot plan. At best I might get lucky and take a leg off. At worst it would play dead and bite me when I tried fishing its guts out of the broom.

5) See what Google has to say.

What's great about this is when you type in "how to kill a" here's what pops up.

how to kill a mocking bird
how to kill ants
how to kill a tree
how to kill a vampire
how to kill a dog
how to kill a zombie
how to kill a cat
how to kill aphids
how to kill a werewolf

But the moment you get to "how to kill a b" a whole cornucopia of spider killing info pops up and in about 2.2 seconds I was down at the neighborhood hardware store on a mission to pick up Ortho Hornet and Wasp Killer. Apparently it's the most bad ass stuff a person can legally buy without needing a special permit.

When I returned home I noticed the spider had ignored my request to either pay rent or move out. It was time to get to work. A couple of test squirts later, I felt confidence in what Mr. Ortho had to offer.

Because the gap between the regular door and the screen door was pretty narrow and I was twitching more than Don Knotts in the Shakiest Gun in the West, I accidentally bumped the door with my can'o death and for the first time since I spotted it, the spider sprang to life.

I swore I could hear it hiss but before it could heat up its venom sac, I let loose with a barrage of Ortho so massive I'm surprised the FBI didn't show up to investigate a nuclear detonation.

I swaggered my way back into the house expecting applause for slaying the beast. When was none I made the mistake of asking my girlfriend for the whereabouts of my hero's welcome. She just stared me down for moment and responded with, "Yeah, you'll get one the moment you ever thank me for doing your laundry all these years."

Touche'.

Whatevs. You can't win them all but I scored where it matters.

Todd 1 Black Widow 0.