# Coffee table 1, giant spider 0. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 26, 2005, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601 "2005-05-26T14:18:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Doctor\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctor_jackson/32/32_2.png) [@Doctor\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doctor_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601/21 "2005-05-27T18:35:03Z")
Chaper II **Big Bad Voodoo Lou** awakens. He groggily falls out of bed and stumbles to the bathroom. Still on automatic pilot, he aims and fires the same as he’s done every morning for who can remember how long - until he feels warm spatters on his legs and feet . “Hey!”, thinks he, “Who put the toilet lid down? I always leave it up.” **Lou** chalks it up to midnight roamings (little does he know) and clumisly cleans up the mess. “I’ll get the rest later” he mumbles and begins to move towards the hall. He bounces off the bathroom doorjam, possibly breking his little toe in 4 places, careens into the hall wall and hits the ground with a thud. “Crap!” he cried (because this is a family story). “That’s gonna hurt when I wake up”. **Lou** ’s sleep adled brain senses something is amiss - but what? “Didn’t I use the coffee table to crush a gargantuan spider last night in this very hallway? Didn’t I leave said table upside down on top of also said gargatuan spider?” Lou is confused. The table is not there, nor is there any sign of a spider, gargantuan or otherwise. “Must have been a dream” he muses. “who kills a spider with a coffee table, anyway? From now on, no more anchovies at bedtime”. Our hero picks himself up off the hall floor and limps his way to the living room. “What the…” **Lou** thinks outloud. There is the coffee table. It’s upright and in the right room, but it’s not where it should be." Slowly, **Lou** looks around. The whole room has been rearranged, and quite tastefully at that. **Lou** scans the room. “Not bad” he muses, “not bad at all.” “I’m glad you like it.” **Lou** spins around at the sound of the strange voice. He spots the source, but his brain doesn’t immediately register the speaker. **Lou** takes a deep breath and focuses. There, sitting in his lazy boy, dressed in **Lou** ’s best housecoat and smoking a pipe (“A pipe?” **Lou** thinks incredulously, “where did that come from?”) is one huge spider. One might even say gargantuan. Natty, in a hairy, leggy sort of way, but gargantuan all the same. The spider’s eyes were fixed ominoulsy on **Lou** ’s. **Lou** briefly considered a staredown, but tossed that idea aside as just plain silly. He was, afterall, outnumbered 4 to 1 in the eyeball department. For a fleeting moment **Lou** found it humorous that 6 of the spider’s eyes appeared to have shiners. “I so hoped you would be pleased with my handiwork” said the spider, smiling a somewhat menacing smile. “You see, I had a lot of time to think last night. That table was very nearly my end. While I recovered sufficiently to move the damn thing I was able to come up with this floor plan. Very efficient and asthetically pleasing as well, if I do say so myself.” “You see,” continued the spider “it gets quite tiresome living on a web all the time, what with you humans constantly ‘cleaning them up’. I thought maybe I’d try living in a house for a while. Not a web in the house, mind you, but the house itself. Not only will it be more comfortable, but less rebuilding means more web for the really important things - like wrapping food. Do come closer, dear human,…” ---
**Author:** ![Kythereia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e8c25b/32.png) [@Kythereia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kythereia)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 6:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601/22 "2005-05-27T18:37:14Z")
> [@Little Bird](#): > > [Eeep.](http://www.uark.edu/~dksander/photos/spiders/wolf.html) That just gave me nightmares for the rest of my life, bucko, you’re paying for my therapy bills! :mad: ☹ Side note: didn’t Cecil advocate nuking the sweet, shy, gentle little critters of this earth in one of his columns? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Bird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3ec8ea/32.png) [@Little\_Bird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Bird)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601/23 "2005-05-27T20:59:29Z")
> [@Kythereia](#): > > That just gave me nightmares for the rest of my life, bucko, you’re paying for my therapy bills! :mad: ☹ I’ll send you a check in the mail. What’s your address? Oh wait, it will be a large check…better send it in a box…it might not sound check-like when you shake it…but go ahead and open it right up…inside your house, of course… ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601/24 "2005-05-27T22:06:34Z")
[You aint seen NOTHIN’ yet.](http://www.snopes.com/photos/bugs/camelspider.asp) ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2005, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601/25 "2005-05-27T22:31:05Z")
Came in from the garden today and the missus said “I think that thing in the window there is a hornet, what do you think?” Oh, you mean that malevolent two-and-a-half inch long black and yellow insect attack helicopter of evil? Yes, that’s a hornet. Here’s my chance to show what a real man is made of; I sprayed it with Raid and ran away, screaming like a little girl. Those things _terrify_ me; the ‘knockdown’ effect of these sprays barely touches them - it flew about _fast_ looking really angry for a good ten seconds before landing, crawling around for a few minutes, then thrashing and buzzing about; eventually dying only when I summoned up the nerve to catch it in a plastic container and put it in the freezer. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Wing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/51bf81/32.png) [@Little\_Wing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Wing)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2005, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601/26 "2005-05-28T04:07:33Z")
Holy crap! It was how big?! I think I would have wet myself. Congrats on conquering your enemy (even at the cost of your poor coffee table) but I have to say I’ve got a major case of the willies right about now from reading this thread. And, like **Snickers** , I damn well knew better than to click on that link. _shudders_ Snakes? No problem. Spiders? Hell no. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/coffee-table-1-giant-spider-0/305601.md?page=1)