The following is a parody of "Texas Rangers," which I came up with because of the convergence of two otherwise unrelated circumstances: to wit, the failing fortunes of the Texas Rangers baseball team in the 2011 World Series and my discovery and annihilation of a brown recluse spider which I found in the basement around that time. I remember thinking about how late in the year it was to find one, as they used to hibernate by September. After I smashed it, however, I began to think about what life might be like from the spiders' perspectives and this song was the result of my empathetic imaginings.

COME ALL YOU RECLUSE SPIDERS
(words, Julie Henigan, copyright 2011; tune, traditional)

Come all you recluse spiders, wherever you may be,
That dwell in barns and basements, and in attics make so free,
If humans dwell amongst you, your lives they’ll seek to take,
And hire exterminators, which will make your hearts to ache.

Perhaps you may have spiderlings, perhaps you may have none;
Your mates you may have eaten before their time has come.
But if you have survived this long, you’ll surely rue the day
When those cruel men from Orkin your basement come to spray.

For they’ll come with sprays and poisons and toxins of the best,
They’ll spray you when you’re hunting and when you are at rest;
If you are hit directly, you’ll die as in a trance,
But otherwise you’ll end your days in a neural-toxic dance.

But worse by far than poison are the glue traps that you find,
For once you’ve trod upon them, boys, you cannot change your mind.
Instead of dying swiftly as nature might intend,
With thirst and with starvation you’ll meet a grisly end.

Perhaps I’ll go to Arkansas, where they have woods galore,
Perhaps I’ll go to Texas and roam the desert floor;
But I’m bound to keep a-roving until I find a place
Where none of those bold Orkin men will ever show his face.

And now to end my story and finish up my song,
The life of a recluse spider, boys, is sometimes not too long.
But here’s to all you females, when you don’t prove unkind,
So, farewell, dear old mother, and the mate I leave behind.