Helluva story, Payton, and superbly told! Can’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard while flinching so violently.
Seriously, great stuff.
Oh I shouldn’t… But I must… No, I shouldn’t… sigh I suppose I must: You might not want to click
I really REALLY shouldn’t have clicked on that link.shudders
I am fine with spiders.What spiders we HAVE found in the house have been,luckily for us,small grayish black ‘charlotte’ type spiders that are harmless. They are allowed to go on their merry spider way (unless the cats spot them.Then they are a snack).
IDBBwho is still doing a full body shiveryshake from the above link
Payton owes me a new keyboard! Absolutely hilarious.
OTH, I am the scourge of creepy-crawlies and things that go bump in the night. I’m the official Exterminator no matter where I am - home, work, out with friends, etc. They cower and quake when confronted with my Queenly presence and must die for their inadequate attempts to frighten me.
That said, I never realized how many Doper’s had such an irrational fear of buggies. 
Pansies. 
::d&r::
<cornpone>Y’all know, ah don’t want y’all to think A’hm jumpin’ to conclusions, but Ah do believe that that Payton might just have seen a spider.</cornpone>
:lols at Bosda’s cornpone-ism*
See…that’s why I have cats. Whatever bugs happen to get into the house are immediately stalked,killed,eaten and then promplty regurgitated onto my favorite shoes.
I don’t know what I’d do without them.
IDBB
Birdgirl, I believe you’re describing a centipede, which is not at all unusual in the US. I’m surprised you’ve never encountered one before. Here’s link with a good picture of a Texas variety, which is about the same as what you’d see in Maryland (except that being from Texas, it’s bigger, of course), along with bonus pictures of some of the other beasties described in this thread. http://urbanentomology.tamu.edu/arthropods.html
BTW, be glad you don’t live in the tropics - centipedes there can grow to OVER A FOOT, and yes, like spiders, they’re all venomous.:eek:
birdgirl, I know what kind of bug you’re talking about! We used to get them all the time in my rowhouse in DC. Ours were light instead of dark brown though. Their legs are kind of skinny and they sort of undulate as they walk, right? We used to call them DC bugs because nobody knew what they were–they don’t look like any kind of millipede or centipede I’ve seen.
I sympathize with the horror you must have experienced with the spider…
Doesn’t matter if it was a Black Widow or a Wolf spider…They all pose a threat…If you were Ant sized, you’d be dead!
When I was around 7 or 8, my parents shipped me off to a YMCA summer camp.
There was a big campout and not enough tents to accomodate all the little kids, so a number of us lucky ones got to sleep outside.
It started POURING around 1:00 AM. There was absolutely no shelter for us so we just stayed out in the rain in our sleeping bags…
Around dawn, I peeled my soaked sleeping bag off me and too my horror, what seemed to be hundreds of sleeping Daddy Longlegs popped up on me. While they might have thought my sleeping bag was a sort of shelter from the rain for them, I thought (and still do) that it was one of the most horrific moments of my life…I STILL can see them popping up like little buttons on those long legs…AUGGHHH!!!
Pfffttt…
DLL are not really spiders…
(Is your story any less creepy because of that? I think not!)
I’ve told this story here before, but it never fails to get a few good shivery reactions so here goes:
I used to have a job in which I inspected old wells and water tanks for the state of Alabama. When I was new at the job, I was given (of course) the most godawful, out-of-repair, so-far-back-in-the-woods-that-they-had-to-pipe-daylight-in systems in the whole state.
And when you’re talking rural Alabama, that’s saying something.
One day, I was out in the woods and had to inspect a very old-style water tank which basically looked like a small chicken house with a large door at one end. I had to get in and test for chlorine, inspect the general state of repair, etc.
I swung the door open, and since it was rusty and old, it didn’t want to open easily. I wedged it a little open a,d hooked my hands on the inside, leaning back and hauling hard.
That’s when I noticed the legs. Under my palm.
Big, nasty, squirmy, hairy legs.
OK, Ugh. Bad enough, right?
Ha. I’d caught Ms. Matriarch Wolf Spider in that magical period of time after her eggs had hatched and before her hundreds of spiderlings left their cozy spot on her giant, Shelob-scale abdomen.
Well, they left, alright. They left her abdomen and scuttled, every last one of them, up my hand, wrist, and arm.
They made it under my long sleeve shirt in amazing time.
EEEEUUUGGGHH!
On reflection, it’s a good thing I was wearing a t-shirt, because I tore my shirt off with wild abandon, and I’d have had to drive back to Montgomery bare-chested.
Ah, I miss that job. Wait. No, I don’t.
Payton, glad you are alive. I once knocked a tooth out escaping from a spider attack. Fortunately, I was only 7 at the time, so the tooth was coming out soon enough on its own anyway. Still …
Just be glad the spider didn’t bite you! I once got bit by a spider - not a black widow or anything, but a good sized-spider nonetheless - and I had a terrible reaction to the bite. Which caused me to be subjected to the only thing in the world I fear as much as “bugs” …
Needles. One needle in particular, filled with cortisone and other goodies to offset the allergens and histamines in my system, which - I shit you not - was so long the damn thing came out the other side of my leg.
Bugs are evil and they all must be destroyed. Spider-Man and The Tick will be first against the wall when the Revolution comes.
Servant, please cross-post that over at FFF so that no-one misses it! That was one the the best posts I have read in ages, right up there with “The Horror of Blimps.”
Scylla, watch your back. There may be a new sheriff in town, or at least a deputy!
Ok when is the expert gonna show up and tell us if just letting the thing bite him would have been cheaper and less damaging over all than a shoulder/hand full of glass?
great story btw.
Could somebody please spoil this link for me? I can look at the first picture, but I just can’t bear to peek at the one below it. At least not while I’m home alone. Bugs don’t usually bother me, but really huge ones in my house give me the willies. House centipedes…uuugggghhh.
Why on earth am I leaving the safe, relatively bug-free north to go live in Georgia?!
I think I subconciously think that I can remain calm in this kind of situation, specifically, reading about this. Well, I CAN’T!
Twitches
A lot
Whew…I just looked. Pretty cool lookin’ actually.
Shudder
It’s a really big spider hanging out behind the clock.
Really.
Big.
Looks kinda like the aforementioned wolf spiders, but I think it’s a mite too spindly. Then, I’m not an arachnologist.
Bah - introduce your little friend to Eduardo.
(Did this make Threadspotting? It should have. )
Esprix
I really like spiders. Yep, like 'em. Payton, that was an incredibly beautifully written story. Glad you’re alright after all that, and amazed that after all that you didn’t bomb the bejesus out of La Spidas living in the basement. You’re a fine wonderment!