I went into my room 15 minutes ago, turned into my bathroom, and right up on the doorway was a spider. This thing was big. Well, for a house spider I guess. I mean, I’m not in the Amazon or anything and it didn’t play the lead in arachnophobia, but still a pretty scary size. And he appeared to be sleeping.
So I go into the bathroom and grab some toilet paper, because I’m out of tissues. And I go up to it and reach out and…I can’t seem to bring myself to kill him. All he’s doing there is sleeping. Assuming he’s a he. I don’t know what spider genitalia look like. I know they have eight legs and eight eyes so I’m just afraid to learn anything else about them.
But he’s sleeping. I can’t imagine waking up to being dead would feel very good at all. Then I think but he’s in my house! He’s a trespasser! He should know better than to come in here and remain living. I’ve killed his brethren before. Surely songs have been sung about me in the spider world.
He doesn’t seem to care. There he is sleeping right out in the open like that.
I’m also assuming he’s sleeping. I don’t hear him snoring or anything but I’ve got to take his total lack of movement with me standing right up next to him as some indication. Either that or he skipped school the day they taught spider survivor skills.
But he’s big enough to have survived this long. Maybe he was cast out by his spider tribe, like they do in some African villages. Maybe he wants to die and he’s desperately waiting for me to go ahead and plunge down upon him, Grim Reaper that I am.
But who am I to play God? Why must my hand be the fickle fate of life and death? And I realized it’s because I had already chosen to play God and I was inches away from doing the deed.
I’d just like to pause for a moment and inform all of those still reading this that I’m not making any of this up. My mind is seriously this twisted and this was the conversation that I was carrying on with myself. And now on with the show…
So I walked away for a few moments and when I came back, I noticed that one of the spider’s legs had moved. It was just a little bit, subtle, but there. My mind flashed back to that twilight zone episode where the guy’s paralyzed and all he can move is his pinky which he desperately wiggles in the hopes that someone will notice he’s not dead. And now I thought that maybe that’s what was happening. Rather than being cast out, this spider wants to live and is sending me a message in the hopes that I won’t do it. I won’t kill him. He knows if he runs he’s a goner. But he’s been around the proverbial block enough times to get out of more than one jam. This is an improviser. An intelligent spider. My Moriarty.
Or maybe he’s just dreaming and kicking his leg like dogs do. I wonder what spiders dream about. Maybe about spider Shangri-la where humans, made entirely out of arteries, just lie there begging for spiders to bite them. Where flies are plentiful and the spider women have legs that go all the way up,
But then the image of spiders biting me went through my head. This spider wouldn’t hesitate to attack me if I were asleep. Why should I act any differently towards it? What makes me so noble, so caring, that I can rise above its moral standards? We didn’t evolve with opposable thumbs without learning how to grip weapons of war and by God my wad of toilet paper is the almighty sword of destruction.
And thus, at 1:15 am CST on July 22, 2001, there was one less spider to spin webs and frolic in his merry spider ways upon this great Earth.
Due to the thought and caring put into it, i beleive that your sentance should be reduced from seven YEARS of bad luck, to a slap on the wrist. I think you did needed to be done to ensure your survival, cause that spider had you all lined up… just waiting for you to have your back turned…
of course, that’s just what i think, it’s not like im a spider with inside knowledge or anything…
[sub]…I’ve said too much, back to the web!!![/sub]
What harm did that spider befall you? What harm COULD it have done? It was not venomous. It was not attacking. It did not look upon you as a prey. It only sought the safety of shelter. It found your bathroom where it would be safe from the dangerous eliments and perhaps have water to drink when thirsty. In his mind he wanted to keep his/your domicile free of insects, for his nurishment and as a side effect for your comfort. Were you that scared of this tiny creature, did you think he was planning to kill you and your family while he slept?? How big was he? Half and inch accross? Do you know how long it would take to spin a cocoon around you that was so thick you couldn’t break free? A long time, the spider would be dead by then.
Maybe YOU SIR have seen too many arachnophobia type movies. God bless his little exoskeleton soul. Didn’t take to much pressure to crush did it? Think about that… think about that.
If you kill a spider it will be rain.
I don’t know if oyu say so in US,
but here in Sweden we say so.
So if it will rain today where you live,
you’re the one that caused it.
I most undoubtedly agree with Whammo. Everyone has the urge to kill spiders on sight, it is a learned behavior taught to us by our elders(mothers mostly). I say if you kill it, you should eat it. Then and there. Ok, sautee it with a little red wine, I don’t care. But all you did was senselessly kill it in an irrational fervor and sending it spinning to a watery grave.
Also understand that spiders will kill mosquitos and sweater gobbling moths if given the chance. What good do mosquitos and moths ever do? They are much more beneficial than they are vicious killers.
Plus, you will feel better after having left one alive than after having killed one. However, if you are lying down for bed and notice one staring at you two feet from your face, by all means DON’T KILL IT. Relocate it. Scoop it onto a piece of paper and drop it outside your front door.
That’s much better, then it can be eaten by a bird… it still dies, although at least that way the birdy gets to live, which is good. unless it’s one of those stupid magpies…
My problem with finding spiders in my home is that I always kill it with fire, and my landlord has complained more than once about the scorch marks. It’s really a lose-lose situation.
[sub]See, if Fred would have just TOLD the other spiders about our deal, this wouldn’t have happened![/sub]
I mostly agree with Wishbone, and by association Whammo, except for the part about fear of spiders being learned behaviour. My 3 year old son has a huge fear of spiders complex. We still can’t figure this out, since neither his mother, father or older sister has this fear. So it may well go back to some primordial fear of arachnids kind of thing. For the past two months we have lived in a nice, temporary apartment, where the only drawback was the incredible number of 'daddy longlegs spiders who called it home. Soon SonOShibb totally refused to set foot in the garage, since that was spider ground zero. Now as far as I know this type of spider is completely harmless, but we just couldn’t convince li’l SOS of this. What’s more bizarre is that he completely enjoys playing with any other kind of small insect he can find.
Anyway, next time just get someone else, without your fear, or overactive imagination, to use a piece of paper to shuttle the poor thing outside of your abode.
ShibbOleth here’s a random useless fact for you: daddy longlegs aren’t really spiders. They don’t build webs, for one thing, and, uh…well that’s all I really know about them, except they’re frickin huge. They’re classified as arachnids though, and I believe they’re more closely related to scorpions.
MEBuckner nobody’s saved him. But with a pig that special, you really have to savor him (anyone heard that joke before?).
And I’ve never heard about 7 years of bad luck or rain making abilities. But maybe I should be glad about the rain. Last week our state was the hottest in the country. That includes both Hawaii AND Alaska!
And no one here is accepting the fact that maybe the spider wanted to die. It is possible that the l’il guy had lived a long and fruitful life and wanted to go out with a bang (or a squish). I am the Dr. Kevorkian of the 8 legged world. Do not arbitrarily rule me guilty for until you grow 4 more limbs and 2 more segments you shall not truly understand their point of view.
My motto is: never judge a man until you walk a mile in his shoes. For then you shall be a mile away. And he shall have no shoes.
Well, SOS insists that they are spiders, but perhaps that is because he has trouble pronouncing 'L’s. And his phobia is not confined to this breed. Don’t know if he’s ever seen a scorpion (you can buy them to eat in Bangkok, but I never met anyone who knew how they should be consumed. I assume that they taste like grasshoppers or grubs, but more crunchy…)
Anyway, your explanations makes sense to me, since they don’t have the classic spider torso. I think that they are related to that strange thing with one eye in the old Johnny Quest episode. And sorry for not warning you that your thread was getting dangerously close to crossing into SpiderWoman’s birthday thread.
I am not fond of spiders either. In the last place I lived, the most common spider was the black widow. The ones that weren’t black widows were brown recluses aka fiddlebacks. Widows were everywhere. Under our beds, the kitchen and depending on the time of year, the garage would have dozens upon dozens of them. No amount of spraying, professional help etc. would rid them for more than a month. Every week, someone we knew was getting bit, and based on their descriptions of it, and the physical sight of them afterwards, made it clear to me that being bit by one is one of the last things I desire to experience or let my kids go through. The scorpions didn’t bother me, cuz that is like a bee sting. Plus they are cool looking.
I still have a burning desire to destroy any spider I see, but knowing that few here are poisonous, I restrain myself, knowing that my distaste for spiders is based upon my own ignorance of socially understanding them. This is not to imply, however, that you are ignorant in any way, nor to imply that spiders exist on a lower level than myself but only on a different one that I am not familiar with. I have instilled a pilot social program in my home that I call “Diversity in the Living Space” that I hope will help my entire family embrace all living creatures and consider them as equals. Although spiders were not invited to cross my boundary lines, they do have an equal right to be granted the same living conditions, benefits and social standing as myself. This does not mean that I, in any way, consider those who think otherwise as being less intelligent or caring as myself however, as everyone is entitled to their own belief without reprimand.
That poor poor spider. What i usually do, because I find spiders helpful, is relocate them. Even if your afraid of picking them up, get a glass, move it around and the spider will freak out and run into the glass. I then find a nice bug filled spot in my back yard and show the spider to its new home.
About the daddy long legs, its true that they are not spiders. They have one body segment, not two, and some other characteristics that makes them not an actual spider.
Black widows?..Yes they scare the bejesus outta everyone around this household. So what does little Miss Arachnidlove do? I captured one the other day and now have it in my room. Still in its jar mind you. She’s a FATTY! My parents are quite mad that i’d bring such a monster in the house. I fed her a cricket. She seems pretty damn happy.
I’m going to release her in the park down the street sometime soon. A lot of people are like “Great,so she can bite the kids huh?”. Wellllll, as far as I know black widows prefer dark places. So they will hide most of the time.
And now to freak everybody out. Yes I do own a tarantula. A verry cute curly haired one. What pests does she rid the world of? Crickets, small mice, and one male tarantula. What does she do for me? She’s quiet, doesn’t smell, doesnt’ need to be fed often, scares people out of my room, doesn’t need to be bathed, no vet visits, and displays an interesting feeding time.
I love your spiders. And I love real spiders too, which is how my SDMB name came about (different thread, different story).
I also relocate spiders and put them in my garden. There are some really lovely ones called nursery web spiders that live here in Minnesota. I would like to relocate one from a riverbank to my backyard pond, but haven’t found one lately.
Enderw24, if you lived close enough, I would come get your spiders for you. I always remove the ones that like our bathroom, when my daughter takes a shower. Then a couple of days later, another one appears.
First, I’d like to point out that I didn’t mean to imply that I would squish you if you came into my home. Not that you were thinking that, but I’d like to alliviate fears.
Also, if you give me your address, I’ll be glad to mail the next spider I find right to your door! I’m thinking an envelope with those little bubbles inside so it can spend its time biting into the things and hearing the “pop!” Plus, it wouldn’t run out of air so soon!
And if I were a spider, I’d spend most of my time looking at nekkid people in the shower too. But that’s because I’d be a horny spider.
I was just teasing about the funny spider smileys; I know you wouldn’t squish me. Tee hee.
I don’t think a spider would like the air-enhanced package. If you are going to go to the trouble to capture one, you could just as easily put it outside.
I’m quite conflicted where spiders are concerned. I know on an intellectual level that they’re beneficial and kill many insects that are far more irritating than the spiders themselves. When I was a kid I would occasionally pick up ants and feed them to the funnel-web spiders living in the nooks and crannies of our house. It was too cool to watch the spider dart out of its funnel and kill the ant dead.
I’m not always so friendly toward spiders, though. They definitely trigger a kill-kill-kill reflex in me, and generally I kill them on sight.
I had a friend who was deathly afraid of spiders. He insisted that they be killed with fire. I agreed with him, and used to torch them any time I got a chance. It must have gotten boring after a while, though, 'cause I haven’t done it in a long time. Anyway, this guy once swore he saw a spider the size of his hand in a stairway at another friend’s house, and that it jumped at him. There are no such spiders native to this area - nothing even approaching the size of a person’s hand. But he swears it happened. And no, he wasn’t on drugs. Heh…
One of my ex-girlfriends was a real nature-type. She and I were hiking at one point and she noticed a small spider on the trail. She stopped and pointed it out to me and talked about how cool it was. I looked at it for a bit, then stepped on it. She was not amused. She made me promise never to do that again. That was, until her basement apartment became infested with wolf spiders. This was apparently a yearly occurrance. She reluctantly started letting me kill them. I still think of her apartment whenever I hear the song Boris the Spider by The Who.
This thread brought to the surface a long-buried memory I have of my grandfather terrifying me with a daddy long legs when I was very young. I completely freaked. I think he thought it was funny. If he hadn’t been so incredibly cool in so many other ways, I might have hated him for that.
My sister, who is very non-girly in many ways and not at all afraid of bigs, rodents, etc., nevertheless has a theory that nothing with more than four legs should be allowed to live. I’m inclined to agree.
