it’s amazing the feelings a little 'ol spider can elicit but I have to agree with mudshark, they really do freak me out.
This might merit a new thread, but my threads always sink like a stone, so I’ll just post here:
I am a spider racist.
I like light-colored spiders. They’re fine by me. Tan, white, clear-colored, A-OK. They’re kind of cute. But if a spider is brown or black, it must be squished instantly.
I feel terrible about it.
Just the other night, I was saying to d_redguy that Aragog (of Harry Potter fame aka Huge Freaking Spider) was living on our back porch. d_redguy was on his way to work and had no time to investigate, but he did have time to mock me with “Oh, knowing you and spiders, it’s the size of a nickel.”
No. No, it wasn’t. It was the size of a golf ball. At least.
My pleadings were futile though, and off to work he went.
A few days later he decided to take the trash to the neighborhood dumpster. (Our big trash can is on the aforementioned back porch.) I was sound asleep in bed, as it was early morning. d_redguy works at night and had just returned home. My first vision of him that morning went something like this:
poke___poke
Me: “Gah…wha? Goway…”
Him: (pulling shoelace-sized webbing from his arms, face and hair.) “You’re going to have to let me purchase that shotgun…”
Me: “Uh…wait- what? Why?”
Him: “Anything less than eight rounds will only serve to make it angry.”
Me: “What are you talking about?”
Him: “Aragog. The spider. Holy freaking sh*t!”
Me: laughs uncontrollably
Neither of us went out there for several days.
Finally, I pulled back the blinds and peered onto the porch. “It’s still there,” says I. “You have to kill it. NOW.”
It took half a can of RAID. It’s been almost a week and the corpse is still there.
I used to absolutely hate spiders.
I have, however become more tolerant of them. I let the big garden spiders in my yard be, not only because they keep the insects down, but hey, it’s fun to sit on the front porch and watch them spin a web. From a distance. With beer. It’s entertaining and you get to see nature at work in one of her finest glories. Until the little buggers start coming towards me or worse, get on me.
One day that I have in mind, I came home from the grocery store, two grocery bags in one hand, keys, cell phone and coke in the other. Just before I got to the door, I hit a spiderweb stretching from the house doen to the ground and across about 5 feet of the driveway. The bad part is, that right before I hit it, I saw the spider out of the corner of my eye right next to where my ear soon would be.
The next part is a blur, but I do remember having to tell myself to calm down. I also remember being proud of the fact that for once, I did not scream like a little girl. Proud because I am, in fact a 32 year old man.
The next thing I remember is coming out of the shower. The hot disinfecting shower. Still shuddering.
Walking down the hall, I saw on the floor, in this order: Underwear, socks, pants, shirt, wallet, cell phone, and keys.
In the living room was: Groceries scattered on the floor, shoes, and the bottle of coke lying on it’s side sputtering foam, as it was not closed completely and the shock of dropping it made it fizz up pretty good.
I began to pick up the items discarded in my temporary lunacy and was reall beginning to think of how silly I had acted. Then, as I bent down to pick up the coke, I saw right in front of my face - the spider. A brief unintelligible gutteral utterance came forth out of fear and surprise. It as an orb weaver - completely harmless and actually quite a nice looking spider. I’m sure that it had a nice home, neatly kept until some blundering idiot came along and crashed through it. But it was a spider nonetheless. Now, considering that I had nearly beaten myself to death flailing around trying to knock the spider off of me, it looked considerably dead. It was on it’s back with its legs curled up in the dead spider equivalant of a fetal position. But it could have been a trick. Laying in wait to se if I would look any closer and then spring on my face like the thing in the first “Alien” move. So ever so steathily, never taking my eyes off the tricky spider, I slipped on a nearby sandal and stepped ever so firmly on the spider.
Just to be sure.
Then I gave it a twist of the ankle.
Just to be sure.
I used to absolutely hate spiders. Now I freaking abhor them.
This thread is making my skin crawl…ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :shudder
Welcome to the boards, Baggins 111! More stories, please.
Thanks, pugluvr.
I’v been lurking for some time and had to share this story.
Lurking like a spider on the ceiling… watching you shower…
I have a word of caution for you kind-hearted folks letting little itty bitty spiders live in your home. I speak from experience here.
We once had a tiny little spider that spun her tiny little web unobtrusively in a corner of our bathroom. It was almost, dare I say it, cute and we let her stay there. She didn’t bother us and we didn’t bother her.
Until…
One morning I stepped into the shower and ran into a dense curtain of baby spiders. Yes, the cute little spider had hidden an egg sac in her corner. Thousands of little, itty bitty spiders allll over the bathroom. It took days to get them all.
And on the subject of spiders fighting back–yes, they do and yes, the sometimes initiate the attack. I was once attacked by a gigantic, mutant spider that was hiding behind some books on the bookshelf. I moved a book and saw a blur of movement that was spider-shaped jump in my general direction. I dropped the book and screamed, which is the appropriate response in such a situation.
But that’s not all. Once it hit the floor, it ran towards me. I, of course, ran screaming from the room, but decided that I’d have to do something about it while it was still out in the open because if there’s anything worse than a giant, mutant spider running loose in your home, it’s a giant, mutant spider that you know is there but can’t find.
So, I came back in the room and stuck a drinking glass over the top of it. It was so big (as big as my hand, I swear!) that it was too big to smoosh. I was afraid it would crunch or worse, splatter. And it stayed there until my husband came home. He laughed at me when I told him about it until he went in and took a look himself.
All he could say was “it’s got hair!” and pretend to be all macho and trying not to scream like a girlie girl every time it moved while he took it outside.
Re: hyperjes’s story, those were my sentiments exactly. And I was wearing big ol’ Doc Martens at the time. I was not cleaning splattered mutant spider offa my back porch. :insert pukey:
Yes, our Aragog had hair too. I got down face to face with him. I actually could see his mandibles. :eek: He glared at me and said,“Ya feel lucky, punk? Well, do ya?!”
I didn’t.
After discussing the firearms option with the wife, I went to get the can of RAID. He was gone. He knew what I was up to. We’re lucky we saw him that few days later, as he was sitting on the porch right by the pine needles. Had he been in them at the time, he would’ve blended rather nicely.
Stupid evil mutant hairy stealth spider.
And I am totally cool with spiders, by and large. But this abomination had to die. He was a danger to the delicate balance of nature that is the ecosystem surrounding our apartment complex. Nay, our street. Nay, the damn city of Durham at large.
Oh, by the way: Eight Legged Freaks has been on HBO quite regularly lately. I might watch it one of these days. Heh.
My WMD for spiders is…
409
Or anything insecty you want whacked.
Just as long as you hit 'em with the spray, they die.
They may disappear when you spray, but someplace they will crawl and die.
Plus, it doesn’t stain walls, floors or carpets.
I think good story for Lilacs to read would be the thread about the spider and the ruined (nay, destroyed) bathroom.
I can’t remember who started the thread, but I do remember it made thread spotting.