# Oh Please You're Fucking Kidding Me (Spiders & Me) **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [April 4, 2009, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998 "2009-04-04T21:33:42Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/41 "2009-04-06T16:24:19Z")
Leads me to think its a fake. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/42 "2009-04-06T16:40:00Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Leads me to think its a fake. Could be - sure looks too big to be real. But there appears to be some confirmation: [http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=655741](http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=655741) ---
**Author:** ![Anne\_Neville](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Anne\_Neville](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anne_Neville)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/43 "2009-04-06T16:50:14Z")
> [@Idlewild](#): > > …There was something about redbacks under the seats of the outdoor dunnies, but that was just a traditional way to terrorize children into holding it overnight. Which has now evolved into terrorizing the tourists into looking carefully before they sit down, even on indoor toilets. I always looked for spiders before I sat, in our hotel room in Sydney and in all the public toilets I went to. If I see any huge spiders here, you will hear the screams from Australia. You’ll probably also notice if I get my way on killing the thing, and get to slam a 500-kilometer asteroid into the Earth to squish it. I suppose I could use one of [these](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba) if there were no 500-kilometer asteroids available, but it wouldn’t be nearly good enough. ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/44 "2009-04-06T16:50:34Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > Which, being a cross between a spider, a roach and a grasshopper, are some of the most terrifying creatures on God’s green Earth. (Especially since they have a habit of jumping _at_ you, rather than away, as you unsuspectingly attempt to do your laundry. Brrrrr.) I am blindingly terrified of five things: clowns, water (standing bodies), frogs, angels, and cave crickets. Screaming, running-away terrified. There are places at work I refuse to go into because I have on good authority that they are lairs for cave crickets. Being a native Bostonian, it’s been difficult to explain to my family what one of these bastards look like- I describe them as a cross between a cricket and a spider who got possessed by a Terminator- so I just wait until the fam decides to get on a plane and come visit so Mr. Kitty can give them the CC experience. ::shudder:: ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/45 "2009-04-06T16:54:21Z")
Brothers and sisters, we must band in solidarity to resist the media’s attempt to foist its brand of arachno-syndicalism on the people’s revolutionary movement… ---
**Author:** ![PunditLisa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/4af34b/32.png) [@PunditLisa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PunditLisa)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/46 "2009-04-06T17:02:10Z")
We have brown recluses here in Cincinnati. In fact, just this past week my co-worker was hospitalized briefly after being bitten by one. She is meeting with the surgeon this week to repair the gaping wound in her finger. She saved the squashed spider and it was verified that it was, indeed, a brown recluse. Another friend was hospitalized for over a week after being bitten by what they assumed to be a brown recluse. Her arm became necrotic and it wasn’t responding to antibiotics, so they had to put her on an IV drip. This happened about 5 years ago. And finally another co-worker’s daughter was hospitalized just last summer after sleeping outside on a trampoline. Once again, they assume she was bitten by a a brown recluse from the bullseye wound that turned necrotic. She’s fine now but it was seriously hairy for a few days because they were afraid her organs were going to fail. It turned out okay but it took her several weeks to get her fever down and energy back, and then she caught every virus around because of her weakened immune system. How’s that for a little Monday afternoon cheer? ---
**Author:** ![Tixenfleaz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e9a140/32.png) [@Tixenfleaz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tixenfleaz)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/47 "2009-04-06T17:03:27Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Really? Can’t imagine [why](http://poetry.rotten.com/maggoted-ii/)… I know better I fucking know better and I fucking clicked it anyways oh fuck me… ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/48 "2009-04-06T17:56:40Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > thanks=) > > my _dad_ rocks [ok, rocked, he died recently] as he didn’t encourage us to be afraid of spiders, snakes or lizards. My brother and I learned to identify what we were looking at, and how to handle snakes properly so we would not be panicy at seeing them [i have no idea how someone can scream and dance around having a hissy fit at seeing a snake, I am more concerned with IDing teh snake to see if I have to just move it away or if I have to be lots more careful about not being bit.] > > Doesnt stop me from being grossed out by maggots, or detesting roaches [major yuckitude there] but they dont scare me. > > And we have a 1 inch wolf spider living under the bathroom sink, getting fat on any bugs that find there way into the house =) We cant wait to see how big she will get if we leave her alone=) Living in New Mexico I got to be somewhat fond of the spiders that came by. Some were scary when I couldn’t identify them, but when I finally could they were ok because I knew they protected me from other insects. Particularly Daddy Long Legs. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/49 "2009-04-06T18:02:06Z")
> [@SpazCat](#): > > I was working peacefully at my desk one day when my boss stopped by and (a little too) casually asked me if I knew what a brown recluse looked like. Having killed one that scurried out of my roommate’s room the day before, I said yes. She asked me to look in the bathroom sink and see if there was a recluse in there. > > I went in the bathroom. I looked in the sink. > > I ran like hell back into the workroom where I grabbed a heavy-duty stapler, ran back to the bathroom, and proceeded to beat the everlasting shit out of the HUGE FUCKING RECLUSE in the bathroom sink. I then scoured the stapler with hand sanitizer and put it back. > > I am Spider-Killer, defender of the bathroom. In Greenville, North Carolina this happened? That would be rather rare. ---
**Author:** ![Labrador\_Deceiver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7c8e57/32.png) [@Labrador\_Deceiver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Labrador_Deceiver)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/50 "2009-04-06T18:16:39Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > We have brown recluses here in Cincinnati. In fact, just this past week my co-worker was hospitalized briefly after being bitten by one. She is meeting with the surgeon this week to repair the gaping wound in her finger. She saved the squashed spider and it was verified that it was, indeed, a brown recluse. > > Another friend was hospitalized for over a week after being bitten by what they assumed to be a brown recluse. Her arm became necrotic and it wasn’t responding to antibiotics, so they had to put her on an IV drip. This happened about 5 years ago. > > And finally another co-worker’s daughter was hospitalized just last summer after sleeping outside on a trampoline. Once again, they assume she was bitten by a a brown recluse from the bullseye wound that turned necrotic. She’s fine now but it was seriously hairy for a few days because they were afraid her organs were going to fail. It turned out okay but it took her several weeks to get her fever down and energy back, and then she caught every virus around because of her weakened immune system. > > How’s that for a little Monday afternoon cheer? From what I can tell, they were probably misdiagnosed. [Evidently](http://spiders.ucr.edu/necrotic.html), people are misdiagnosed quite often. ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/51 "2009-04-06T18:47:34Z")
> [@PunditLisa](#): > > We have brown recluses here in Cincinnati. In fact, just this past week my co-worker was hospitalized briefly after being bitten by one. She is meeting with the surgeon this week to repair the gaping wound in her finger. She saved the squashed spider and it was verified that it was, indeed, a brown recluse. > > Another friend was hospitalized for over a week after being bitten by what they assumed to be a brown recluse. Her arm became necrotic and it wasn’t responding to antibiotics, so they had to put her on an IV drip. This happened about 5 years ago. > > And finally another co-worker’s daughter was hospitalized just last summer after sleeping outside on a trampoline. Once again, they assume she was bitten by a a brown recluse from the bullseye wound that turned necrotic. She’s fine now but it was seriously hairy for a few days because they were afraid her organs were going to fail. It turned out okay but it took her several weeks to get her fever down and energy back, and then she caught every virus around because of her weakened immune system. > > How’s that for a little Monday afternoon cheer? I knew a guy here in the Chicago area who got bit by a brown recluse and had an IV that he wore while he did his daily life. Supposedly it pumped it directly to his heart or something. Quite scary. And I knew a woman who had extensive skin grafts due to a spider bite. I hate the little bastids with every fiber of my being. Yes, I know they serve a purpose, but I’m a’feared of 'em. ---
**Author:** ![GargoyleWB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gargoylewb/32/199_2.png) [@GargoyleWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GargoyleWB)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/52 "2009-04-06T19:00:31Z")
> [@EJsGirl](#): > > We have lots of black widows in SoCal, but as stated upthread, absolutely no brown recluse spiders. At all. Nice rant, though. 🙂 Not true. They hitch rides from back east in fruit crates, beer kegs, and General Foods cereal boxes. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/53 "2009-04-06T19:56:10Z")
Kiwi fruit, Coors beer, and Lucky Charms. America needs to know! ---
**Author:** ![Dung\_Beetle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dung_beetle/32/7945_2.png) [@Dung\_Beetle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dung_Beetle)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/54 "2009-04-06T20:13:52Z")
> [@shantih](#): > > Can someone please tell me why in the name of all that’s holy and right I open threads with ‘SPIDER’ in the title? > \ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa _deep breath; continues to read_ AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaa… ---
**Author:** ![apollonia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/2bfe46/32.png) [@apollonia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/apollonia)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/55 "2009-04-06T21:07:44Z")
Oh God, cave crickets are actually WORSE than spiders, if that’s possible. I hate hate hate hate hate spiders, but I can just about manage to kill one if my apartment has been invaded and my roommate’s not home. (If he is home, all bets are off, and I will drag him bodily out of his room if need be to stomp the spider’s eight-legged bazillion-eyed web-spinning ass.) Cave crickets are, I am certain, Satan’s favorite insect. The horror starts with the name–CAVE crickets. Come on! Nothing good comes out of caves! Monsters come out of caves! Monsters and bugs! Monstrous bugs! Those things are pure evil. I mean, the way they’ll just go leaping out at you while you’re innocently trying to do your laundry or whatever–look, Cave Cricket, I didn’t do anything to you! Leave me the fuck alone! I’m just trying to wash some clothes! Stop jumping at me! Especially in the unfinished tiny basement of my dilapidated university house! And for the love of everything don’t leap into people’s HAIR. One of my roommates at the time had a cave cricket leap onto her head and her screaming fit was so loud you could have heard it in Vancouver. I thought someone had turned up in the basement with a knife, it was that loud. So, I really really don’t like spiders, but cave crickets are sent straight from the Devil. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 9:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/56 "2009-04-06T21:23:53Z")
> [@Jester](#): > > My last year in college I lived in a house with four other friends. It was your pretty standard off-campus house (i.e. a dilapidated tinderbox death trap), and had been passed down from group of friends to group of friends for about five years or so, with no group ever _entirely_ cleaning out their junk before they moved. This resulted in a cellar filled with many years’ worth of detritus. Also, [cave crickets](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_Cricket). Which, being a cross between a spider, a roach and a grasshopper, are some of the most terrifying creatures on God’s green Earth. (Especially since they have a habit of jumping _at_ you, rather than away, as you unsuspectingly attempt to do your laundry. Brrrrr.) > > Sadly, the group of friends we were planning on passing the house to after we graduated didn’t get their shit together in time, and the house ended up getting leased to another, unknown group. Which meant we had the unenviable task of cleaning out all the crapola in the basement. We’d noticed a decline in the cave crickets over the previous months, though, so we were feeling okay with it. Until we turned over an old piece of carpeting, and a black widow scurried out. And then we looked around a bit, and saw that damn near everything was covered in the pretty distinct random webs of widows. We made a hasty exit, bug-bombed the cellar, and returned the next day to clean out all the crap (and fresh widow corpses). > > At least we figured out where all the cave crickets went. When my parents moved into the house they live in now, the basement was filled with cave crickets. One summer a toad moved into the basement. The cave cricket population suddenly fell from “see twelve every time you go downstairs” to “see one every week or so”. A couple of years after that a mother cat and her kittens moved in. I haven’t seen a cave cricket down there in about ten years. ---
**Author:** ![Catamount](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/catamount/32/2840_2.png) [@Catamount](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Catamount)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/57 "2009-04-06T21:29:25Z")
> [@Labrador\_Deceiver](#): > > In Greenville, North Carolina this happened? That would be rather rare. What, two brown recluses in two days or me not breaking the sink in half when I smashed the second spider with the stapler? ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2009, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/58 "2009-04-06T21:34:29Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > Oh God, cave crickets are actually WORSE than spiders, if that’s possible. I hate hate hate hate hate spiders, but I can just about manage to kill one if my apartment has been invaded and my roommate’s not home. (If he is home, all bets are off, and I will drag him bodily out of his room if need be to stomp the spider’s eight-legged bazillion-eyed web-spinning ass.) Cave crickets are, I am certain, Satan’s favorite insect. The horror starts with the name–CAVE crickets. Come on! Nothing good comes out of caves! Monsters come out of caves! Monsters and bugs! Monstrous bugs! > > Those things are pure evil. I mean, the way they’ll just go leaping out at you while you’re innocently trying to do your laundry or whatever–look, Cave Cricket, I didn’t do anything to you! Leave me the fuck alone! I’m just trying to wash some clothes! Stop jumping at me! Especially in the unfinished tiny basement of my dilapidated university house! And for the love of everything don’t leap into people’s HAIR. One of my roommates at the time had a cave cricket leap onto her head and her screaming fit was so loud you could have heard it in Vancouver. I thought someone had turned up in the basement with a knife, it was that loud. > > So, I really really don’t like spiders, but cave crickets are sent straight from the Devil. Reminds me of the time a long-haired classmate of mine discovered that preying mantises can fly, but not alas very accurately. She had to be physically restrained to remove the offending insect - a good four-incher. Little bastard could pinch, but not really hard enough to hurt. ---
**Author:** ![Ogre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ecb155/32.png) [@Ogre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ogre)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/59 "2009-04-07T04:54:45Z")
> [@apollonia](#): > > Oh God, cave crickets are actually WORSE than spiders, if that’s possible. I hate hate hate hate hate spiders, but I can just about manage to kill one if my apartment has been invaded and my roommate’s not home. (If he is home, all bets are off, and I will drag him bodily out of his room if need be to stomp the spider’s eight-legged bazillion-eyed web-spinning ass.) Cave crickets are, I am certain, Satan’s favorite insect. The horror starts with the name–CAVE crickets. Come on! Nothing good comes out of caves! Monsters come out of caves! Monsters and bugs! Monstrous bugs! > > Those things are pure evil. I mean, the way they’ll just go leaping out at you while you’re innocently trying to do your laundry or whatever–look, Cave Cricket, I didn’t do anything to you! Leave me the fuck alone! I’m just trying to wash some clothes! Stop jumping at me! Especially in the unfinished tiny basement of my dilapidated university house! And for the love of everything don’t leap into people’s HAIR. One of my roommates at the time had a cave cricket leap onto her head and her screaming fit was so loud you could have heard it in Vancouver. I thought someone had turned up in the basement with a knife, it was that loud. > > So, I really really don’t like spiders, but cave crickets are sent straight from the Devil. So I guess you don’t want to hear about my recent caving trip, when I was crawling through a small passage, and I flashed my helmet light up and saw that the entire ceiling was a seething mass of cave crickets? Or that how they kind of freaked out when the light hit them, and started falling, en masse, onto my neck, and down my shirt? There must have been THOUSANDS of them, crawling all over each other. Would that be an accurate assessment? ---
**Author:** ![bobkitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/c67d28/32.png) [@bobkitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobkitty)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998/60 "2009-04-07T23:31:01Z")
> [@Ogre](#): > > So I guess you don’t want to hear about {SNIP} HATE YOU. ::running to nice, safe, bug-free bed:: [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/oh-please-youre-fucking-kidding-me-spiders-me/491998.md?page=4)