Granny, Spiders, and Wash Hangin' on the Line

Mother used to tell stories about Granny - her mother. Like how she was the one who killed the pests around the house, not Pop. Pop was a violinist and conductor, and somehow too fine for the baser chores of life with 4 kids in Bethesda, Maryland. So Granny killed mice with her bare hands and eradicated any spiders. I don't think Granny was a particularly nice person. Mother always said that she and her siblings were more or less raised by Emma, a black woman who had come North at age 13 with Granny to keep house when Granny married Pop. I thought of Granny this weekend. ( I think a lot more about Emma.)

Wash hanging on the fence to dry. My first time hanging things out like this. Am I a sheltered city kid, or what?

We ran a load of sheets in our new-to-us stackable washer/dryer, and hung them out on the fence to dry. Took all of about 20 minutes in that heat, and they were dry as a bone.

We brought the dry sheets in and started to make the beds, when I noticed a small black spider crawling out of the corner of the sheet. Then I saw a daddy longlegs on the adjacent side. Then we ripped the sheets off and took them to the front porch for a good shaking. Funny, in all the books and articles extolling the virtues of drying your laundry outside, not once did I read about have to shake the s*** out of said laundry to make sure no hitchhikers come in with it. I would have appreciated a heads up.