FYI, the spiders are coming soon to take over your world again this summer.

Ah, the Australian summer. Fire up the barbie and throw on your budgie smugglers, because we’re heading into the season of after-work swims and lemonade icy-poles and beers cold from the Esky. It’s Christmas time! The weather’s beautiful! Everyone’s on holidays! Jugs of sangria keep appearing from nowhere!

If it sounds too good to be true – it is.

Because to any reasonable person with a healthy sense of self-preservation, summer in Australia means only one thing.

The spiders are coming. 

Maybe you’ve noticed them in your shower. Maybe they’ve made their way into the corners of your living room. They could be in your kitchen, or your bedroom, or in your basket of dirty washing.

They could be on your car. They could be – and I say this to warn you, not to force you to set fire to your own car, although that’s an idea you should keep on the backburner just in case – inside your car.

They could be in your pyjama pants. (I’ve been turning mine inside out three times before putting them on, just in case). They could be in your bathroom cupboard. They could be in your mouth. We don’t know! They could literally be anywhere!

They could be Daddy Long Legs or Huntsmen or those weird spiders that look like they only have four legs or GOOD GOD, PEOPLE, DO NOT GOOGLE “TYPES OF AUSTRALIAN SPIDERS” THERE ARE SO MANY AND THEY WILL ALL KILL YOU!?!?!

They could be lone wolf attackers, or part of a larger co-ordinated offence. They could come from the trees or the ground or the mailbox or the… sky, maybe, I don’t actually know that much about spiders. They could come from the very depths of Hell itself. 

Listen: Would you let your 10-year-old go camping alone (at the total mercy of the spiders?)

Fellow Australians. Friends. Countrymen. There’s no way to avoid it. The spiders are taking over the world.

Of course, the most reasonable solution is to build yourself a fort from cans of Mortein in the middle of your lounge room and stay there for the next three-and-a-bit months until the danger has passed.

If that seems “too extreme” and likely to “ruin your entire summer”, however, there are a few other options you can try to keep the spiders at bay.

(Temporarily. They will probably find and kill us all in the end).

1. Spray some diluted peppermint oil in the crevices where spiders like to hide to steer them towards more deserving victims (like your neighbours, for example).

2. Keep the floor of your house clean from clutter, so there are less places for the spiders to hide.

3.  Clean spider webs from your house/windows/car/person as soon as they appear. Webs = spiders. Spiders = bad.

4.  Sweep up stray leaves from around the house and in your car windshield. Spiders hide in these parts!

5. Buy a brave pet who likes to chase creepy crawlies. Is it advisable to purchase a whole pet solely for the purposes of keeping the spiders away? Yes, it is. I cannot emphasise this enough. No measure is too extreme. The spiders are probably already in your pillowcase.

Good luck, fellow humans. I’m rooting for you.

(Well, until the human race is decimated in a violent spider revolution. Then it’s every woman for herself.)