I did not set out to keep twenty-eight tarantulas. The AUDHD came standard. This is the expansion pack.

It started with Nacho, a Brachypelma hamorii. I was pretty sure I was signing up for one very chill spider and a mildly interesting hobby. Nacho passed away after only a few weeks for reasons I'll probably never know, and somewhere between trying to understand what happened and convincing myself I was absolutely not buying another spider, "one tarantula" quietly became twenty-eight.

I'm still a collector. I have a weakness for colorful New World species, dwarf tarantulas, and the occasional rare spider that makes my bank account sigh audibly. What I didn't expect was how much I'd enjoy everything else: watching behaviors change, seeing colors explode after a molt, disappearing into species-specific enclosure design rabbit holes, and discovering that my stress relief apparently involves acrylic, cork bark, and spreadsheets. The invert and reptile community has also turned out to be one of the kindest groups of unapologetic nerds I've ever met, while Fear Not Tarantulas — located an extremely irresponsible ten minutes from my house — has become less of a local shop and more of an enabling institution.

I've even managed to recruit my husband, who was firmly the snake guy. He's since learned that a Trinidad Olive dwarf isn't actually all that dwarf, and that one of the world's largest bird-eating tarantulas can arrive as a freebie the size of a pepper flake with the appetite of a wood chipper. We all learn eventually.