Gah!!!!!!! Spider!!!!!!! Spider!!!!!!!! Spider!!!!!!!!! Spider in my pants!!!!!!!

In Costa Rica, I used to encourage the spiders, including the tarantulas and matacaballos (a red spider nearly as large as a tarantula) because they kept the cockroaches down. I’m not phobic, but man I really hate cockroaches.

I did have a scorpion in pants when I put them on one time. It stung me pretty good, though thankfully not on any part that hangs. I made a new record getting out of those pants. Thank god I wasn’t standing on a slippery floor around a lot of glass at the time.

From what I’ve read and what I’ve seen on various programs on Discovery and Animal Planet, widow anit-venom can be quite expensive, because when they milk the widows, they only get a tiny amount of venom and a fairly large amount is needed to make up the anti-venom.

Widow venom is most dangerous for the elderly and infants, but even if you are healthy and in the prime of your life it isn’t anything to dick around with. Get to an ER. Better to pay for a hospital visit then to keel over dead on your living room rug.

As for the shoulder, it’s doing pretty well, every couple of days, there a piece of glass will work its way to the surface and either I or my dad will pluck it out.

And there are NO more widows in the basement. Payton’s dad went down and found an egg sac and that was it. Came upstairs and called the exterminator and he was over at the house in about 15 minutes, did his spraying cleaning up thing, then did a very meticulous search for any other widows recluses.

Didn’t find any.

Oh yeah, I’m glad that everyone’s enjoyed my little tale.

I had a Scorpion bite me in my groinal area once.

Not pleasant, I tell you.

Heres my spider tale… im not ashamed to admit that im not exactly superman when it comes to these 8 legged insects. My story takes place in Dominican Republic, some of you are already ahead of me because its no secret our southern neighbours tend to house the “larger” breeds of insects. I beleive i was 16, on a tropical vacation with my mother, i woke up before my mother and tiptoed around her bed not to wake her and made my way to the washroom. Sat down and gingerly looked up, discovering i have a hairy peeping tom clinging to the wall opposite to me (sadly this was not exactly a luxurious a hotel so the bathroom’s ARENT BIG). The spider was about the size of a computer diskette, the biggest ive seen that isnt inside some form of enclosure. I had 2 special events that day, the 1st 1 was finding the spider, the 2nd was setting a record for taking fastest leak in history. I left the washroom, told my mother who told the hotel staff, who with big grins came and retreived the spider. As they left, one of them came up to me and said “you a scared of the big spider ? dont worry, he not bite you” . His attempt to assure me didnt exactly work unfortunatly, for the remainder of the vacation (and a week after i came home) i thoroughly inspected the washroom before every usage.

Take care…

Ahhhhh, this was just what I needed. I just got home from work. Long night, v busy. I was just finishing up the cleaning & grabbed two dishtowels, & out of one of them comes a spider, about an inch and a half long. I screamed & dropped the towel with the spider in the sink of hot soapy water. My co-worker & her friend came rushing in to find out why I was freaking. They mocked me until they saw the spider walking across the towel in the sink. It was floating a bit & my spider buddy was looking for a way out. NO WAY was I sticking my hand in there. I was imagining the morning person pissed I hadn’t drained the sink…fortunately, the friend was a tuff guy & he let the water out for me. I’m still a bit shaky. I’m having a beer now, it’s v tasty. Spider dude went down the drain with the water. I’m terrified of them because my mom told me that if I kill one, all it’s relatives will come after me for revenge. So nice to know I’m not the only one. Peyton, I think I’d be afraid of my clothes for weeks to come!

God, spiders FREAK ME OUT!! Big. Small. Brown or black. I don’t care. Eight legs, and I’m standing on top of a chair with the nearest aersol can I can find. And while I’ve read some pretty horrific stories on this website, I have one that tops 'em all:

According to people that research these things. We SWALLOW an AVERAGE of SEVEN FREAKING SPIDERS A YEAR! Is there anything scarrier than that? I think not.

I have had several spastic reactions to a wide variety of arthropods.

While watering the potted plants around the house (at night), I noticed what I originally thought was a large brown toad easing its way down the hillside towards our gate. When I noticed that it didn’t MOVE like a toad, I took a closer look. Yep-Tarantula, bigger than my hands. That’s right, HANDS. Mr. Waterhose helped Mr. Tarantula go surfing for the first time in his life. Another one came over the wall of my shower. One freakin’ finger-sized hairy leg of a spider comes at me over a wall, and I go all Janet Leigh-Psycho in the bathroom. Sad, really.

A buddy of mine once heard a loud scratching under his bed in his dorm room. Thinking it was a suitemate’s escaped pet rat (illicit, of course), he moved the bed. Instead, he found a 7 inch long centipede. Not the nice, harmless, herbivorous millipede-nooooo: a poisonous hunter from the tropics tearing up his carpeting looking for food. Pest control struggled with the bio department over what to do with it (kinda like in Aliens). In the end, Bio won out, and a subsequent search found 3 others of the same size and species in the dorm. Never did find the rat…

PiaJr, I’m pretty sure that dubious stat is figured by the “acceptable amount of insect debirs” allowed in foodstuffs. Not live ones skittering down our throats in our sleep.

Payton’s, I’m left pondering a few things. First, what part of the country are you in? Second, are you nuts to even consider letting those bastards live in your abode? Third, how upset would you feel if this little devei had turned out to be some harmless little house spider and it resulted in that catasrophe? Forth, am I the only one who finds the fact that the medical bills were cheaper than the repairs? $850 for shower doors, good god man.

Apologies for the spelling and grammar above…grumble

Dude, we are not talking about the rational part of the brain! We are talking about the reactions wired into the reptillian part of the brain right at the top of the spinal cord, that among other things control fight-or-flight reactions. Sure, you can control it sometimes, but not always.

Oddly enough, even though I freaked out at various and assorted spiders, I must say, I did control myself quite well when face to face (OK-8" away from) with a rattlesnake. In a 3 point stance bent over to pick up a ball; facing a formerly-invisible-now hissing, rattling snake on the stump I was in front of; stock still and through clenched teeth, I calmly asked my buddy to go get help. It arrived in the form of a 3 Wood, that seperated snake head from body.

Didn’t even wet the pants.

But spiders…UGH! I once threw a glass to kill the spider that was climbing up it while I was drinking. Killed it dead!

However, with the exception of Mr. Tarantula (see above)-if it isn’t in the house or near me, its probably safe. Everywhere else is a kill first-identify later zone.

FYI: All known scorpion species flouresce. If you are concerned about scorpions, get a portable blacklight!

During my freshman year of college I had the dreaded Western Civ. class. This was the class designed to weed out the freshman class by flunking them, having them lose GPA based scholarships or by having them lose their sanity.

So, I need a B to keep my scholarship. (Spiders are in this story, I’m getting there…) For three days, I chugged espresso and took a few (legal) trucker type stimulants. There were 400 terms to memorize and I damn near cleaned out Staples making up study cards every which way. As time and sleepless nights went by, I was starting to need a shower. I was beginning to reach socially unacceptable dirt levels, even for an art student. But, I would waste valuable study time in the shower.

Eureka! I found a proper compromise and took my stinky self down to the library. The librarian thought I was crazy (perhaps it was a hygiene issue) as I laminated my study cards. I studied the cards as I was laminating them.

I went back to the dorm, picked up my toiletries and was off to shower, study cards in hand. As I lathered my hair, I studied my cards and congratulated myself upon how brilliant my idea was. I could sell these cards next year! Then I feel something strange on my shoulder. I look over and a 2" spider is studying on my shoulder with me. For some reason I was not concerned. Calmly, I just swatted the thing off of me and continued studying. Then there were three spiders, no big deal, swat. The next thing I know I am COVERED in spiders.

“SPIDEEEERS!! SPIDEEERS! GET THEM OFF! OFF! OFF!”

I jumped out of the dorm shower, study cards flying everywhere (and I just got the damn things in order) and continued to scream my head off. The RA poked her head into the bathroom along with several dorm-mates to see this scene with me, wet and without a towel, the study cards and my imaginary spiders. Yep, they weren’t real.
At least I got my B, or else I’d feel stupid.

ACK!

I encountered my first Aussie spider the other day. It was freakin’ HUGE. Ok, but GraceGuy says it was just a baby one. That they get bigger. (Bigger than about 3 inches across? Holy crap!)

Took him some time to talk me out of getting a plane ticket home right then and there!

Grace

{after checking out Little_Bear’s link}

huh. yellow garden spider, eh? i suppose that could have been it…although i would swear that my encounter arachnid was more of a bright green. maybe it wasn’t ripe yet.

you want the story?

riding horses on trails through the woods is fun. taking point on said trails is not. you get to be the first one to encounter spiderwebs spun across the pathways. including their residents. riding the tallest horse in the area just gives you that much more acreage to cover as you move on down the road.

which explains why i religiously carried a crop or my hunt whip whenever riding. not that my horse usually needed it–he was as close to solid gold as any self-aware partner animal could be. no, the extra appendage was specifically for brushing aside webs and their contents before they made contact with my person. it’s a good system, as long as you can see them coming.

remember the mention of tallest horse in the neighborhood? that also means i get to duck low-hanging branches more often that other riders. they blithely ride under what comes at face-level to me. so sometimes, when i come up from avoiding an obstacle, i don’t have time to see or react to the web that’s just waiting for me. yuck. usually not too bad, just need to wipe the webbing off my face and soldier on. except, of course, that i’m a genuine arachnophobe. so it’s about as pleasant an experience as some of those scenarios Fear Factor is always advertising, as far as i’m concerned.

the happy day in question, it is summer in Virginia. anyone from this area will already have figured that if you’re not staying in the woods, you’re just not out there. short-sleeved shirts are a must unless you like to melt. i’m riding point, since the young girl from down the street is following behind. (she’s learning to ride on my old pony. he’s a cool dude and good babysitter when need be.) we’re cruising along, and the inevitable Close Encounter of the Spiderweb Kind occurs. oh crap–well, so it goes. except after brushing off the souvenirs, i feel something clingy on my bare forearm a minute or so later. i look down and see what (to me) is a big-ass greenish spider hanging onto my arm. i brush it off with a loud, revolted “GAH!” and do not linger in the vicinity. we wind our way through more woodsy paths, continuing the normal swipe/duck/ick routine as necessary. now, whenever i have up-close-and-personal meetings with most members of the insectoid sphere, i go around with my skin feeling crawlly for hours after the fact. so i don’t consider it outside the norm that i still have the urge to brush myself off every so often. what does pass the acceptable parameters is to look down at that same arm, and to see what looks like THE SAME FREAKIN’ SPIDER clinging to it AGAIN! reptile-brain reflexes are in full swing now as i let out a healthy shriek and knock it off. now my horse, who’s generally steady as a rock, is not used to me screaming when i ride. by this time he’s probably decided that we are being actively pursued by Something Bad that, while invisible to him, is obviously terrorizing his frenzied rider. think that was probably the only time in his long career that he’s ever bolted on me. so we’re running down a seldom-used, rather overgrown section of pathway.

heading into more…

what else?

riding ended early that day.
lachesis

p.s. body size 1 inch? that might be a little conservative. legs cover much greater span? OOOOOO yeah!

:eek:

I’ve only ever hallucinated when I was very sick and had an extremely high fever. I hope you learned a lesson!

And I still scorpions are worse. {shudder} (But bless little Eduardo’s heart anyway, the little guy! I hope Monster104 took care of him for me…)

Esprix

Then why is your user name “lachesis?” :wink:

Esprix

mmm…yes, the garden spider…

here goes nothing:

Easter was a competitive time between my sister and I. She always found more eggs than me. Always. I think she cheated by getting up after the “Bunny” had been there and before the rest of us awoke to scout for the hidden bounty. This year would be different though…much different.

I was probably 5 or 6 years old and the hunt had moved from inside to the front yard. She was, of course, a good two or three eggs ahead but the outdoors was where I shined, seeing as I was less afraid to get dirty, plunge into the dewy grass, etc. After about a half hour of hunting we were tied! YES! victory could be mine if only I could fing the yet ellusive gold egg that Dad only made only one of each year and usually hid rather ingeniusly. Making my way to the fairly bushy side of the yard I caught a glimpse of something shining in the bright early April morning sun. It was about 20’ away. And it was yellow/gold. It was between to bushes. It was going to be MINE! VICTORY AT LAST! I ran as fast as my fat little boy legs could go, my blue and purple egg-laden basket swinging wildly in the crook of my left arm. Blind with excitement at winning and fumbling madly in worry that my sister had seen it as well and would beat me to it I stumbled at the last minute and plunged forward arms out still reaching for my prize.

SPLAT

SCREAMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!

yep. The common garden spider makes its nest in the center of its expansive web. They appear as a yellow orb apprx. 1-2" in diameter. They can appear gold when covered in dew and reflecting sunlight (especially to a 6yo.)

I had stumbled face first and it had burst in the center of my forhead. Thousands of miniscule spiders engulfed my face as the nest burst open. Swarming in liguid-like fashion into my nostrils, sweeping in hordes into my mouth, thundering into my ear canals.
Strange and horrifying scratching noises overcame me. Breathing ceased and the vile taste of bile and acidic baby spiders filled my mouth.

I don’t remember much after that. I have been to therapy about this and I am shaking quite severly as I type this. I think I will end this tale here and go take a nap…and a Valium.

Clotho is the spinner.

i’m the one with the measuring stick.

unless you’re thinking perhaps of Athena and Arachne?

oh, wait, don’t tell me… there’s a friggin’ species of spider with my name too???

herbs and holistic medical theory i can deal with. eight-legged horrors?

crap on a stick! :eek:

:: shakes measuring rod, just to make sure there’s no little passengers. ::
lachesis

I am never, ever waxing my bathroom floor.

Yes, but how does Fate travel? Transformed as a spider on the threads she spins. :wink: (At least, that’s how I remember it from Piers Anthony’s With a Tangled Skein)

Esprix

Coincidence?
I think not.

We’ve lived in our current residence for about eight months. I’ve seen maybe three spiders that whole time.

Update: FOUR. As I was in the middle of reading this thread, I look over and saw - what else? - a disgusting spider climbing across the wall in my direction. As spiders go this is no monster like, say, those giant four foot ones in that link I wish I had never clicked on. But my feelings towards spiders run along the lines of DeVena and many others in this thread: They are the evil spawn of Satan (no, not the Doper).

Thought about asking my son to deal with it. No good. Sixteen month olds don’t have such a great grasp on English yet. Besides, he’d probably try to eat it. Needless to say, after sitting frozen for a few seconds, I tossed my laptop recklessly onto the coffee table, ran into the kitchen, reappeared with the fly swatter, took a little while to work up the courage to get close enough, and then, squealing, took a swat at the thing. I managed to hit it, but apparently not hard enough, as it bounced onto the floor and scurried away under the endtable. I busted out the can of Raid but couldn’t find the little sucker again so just sprayed randomly around that corner.

After relocating myself to the slightly-farther-from-the-corner-than-the-couch loveseat I’ve been fending off invisible spiders (I too suffer from “skin tickles” for awhile after a spider encounter) and luring my wandering son away from that corner by waving the bright yellow floppy disk around.

But he better not get too close to me…after all, who knows what might have hitched a ride on his back as he stood in that corner?