I trained myself to love Rambo by reasoning that he was basically just an eight-legged cat. A friend who worked at a reptile house had hooked us up when, on a visit home from university, I decided I simply had to have a tarantula. Rambo was an infant, a Grammostola pulchripes who was expected to live about seven years. At first, our relationship consisted of me eyeing him warily through his perspex box, checking that the lid remained wedged against any possibility of escape.
I had never been an “animal person”. It took many years to work out that my sneezing was not because of my mother’s attitude towards dusting but the parade of pets that trundled through our home.
But I had struggled with the move from rural Wales to university in Liverpool. Going into my second year and still not fitting comfortably into either world, perhaps I believed Rambo would prove a grounding force, or at least give me cred. He quickly became part of the family, while friends from university often asked to make his acquaintance.
As the weeks passed, I plucked up the guts to pet and eventually hold him. I was in awe of his dainty feet and fascinated by the invisible hooks that lodged themselves into my palm when I swung him upside down.
Our favourite activity to do together was to watch Dexter, the serial killer drama, on my laptop, as he perched on my knee and I stroked his plump little rump. Other times, he liked to chill out in my hair. Tarantulas are known to bite but I trusted him implicitly.
Rambo’s diet consisted of one live insect a month ‒ a job relegated to Dad, who would trundle down the A55 with a pair of tweezers and container of crickets.
I still recall the wonder of the first time Rambo moulted, and my maternal concern when he declined food in preparation for the big event. I was very proud when his leg span eventually passed two inches.
Unfortunately, poor Rambo still petrified everyone else in halls. My insistence that he wasn’t yet fully grown – and couldn’t open fire doors – fell on deaf ears, and I was notified by the powers that be that he would have to go. While I doubted the staff’s commitment to searching my room, I packed Rambo off on holiday to a friend’s place to be safe.
Rambo was there for me when my beloved boyfriend ended things and I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder, a condition that is widely misunderstood and stigmatised. I wonder now if we clicked because we were both hard to love.
Rambo’s death was sudden and pathetic – he drowned in his drinking water. The one who accepted me at my worst was gone.
I immediately acquired a rebound tarantula I named Ringo. But there was no love lost between me and Ringo, who assaulted me without qualms, and I soon acquiesced when a friend offered to take him off my hands.
A decade has passed since Rambo died but I’m still chasing the bond I had with him. He may not have been the conventional furry companion, but his capacity for friendship was even greater than his capacity to frighten.
English (US)