Wh…wha…out of this thread, you…you…spider-lover!
Actually, I really don’t mind spiders that much. I just don’t want them or their webs on my face.
Once there was this small but thick spider near my ceiling. You know what I mean? It wasn’t a thin leggy spider but really thick so I wasn’t sure I could stand to crush it. It would have been kind of like murder. So I was trying to trap it and put it outside. So there I am eye-to-eye with it so to speak, when my dog barked. At the loud noise the spider’s front paws (I know–legs) jumped up. It was so cute! I didn’t know spiders could hear. Or maybe it was a change in air pressure–a very loud bark
So I trapped it and put it outside.
They give me the heebie-jeebies, yet I like to look at them. Preferably through glass. It’s just a problem for me in the summer because we live close to Lake Erie and there seem to be more spiders than anywhere else I’ve ever lived. I’ve always thought it was because they could catch the little buggies that look like mosquitoes but aren’t. Canadian soldiers, midges, mayflies, whatever you call them come in droves in May.
Don’t care. Someone kill it. Not me. Too scared to kill. Science will no doubt find some way to deal with the critters that spiders eat.
Kill them all.
From the filename, I’m guessing it’s one of these. (More here). They are quite beautiful when they are sitting peacefully in the middle of the web. Sometimes you see a pathetically tiny mate (male) in the corner of the web.
But one time I was riding my bike on a sidewalk and thought I saw a bee hovering in the middle of the path. Too late I realized it was actually one of those huge spiders, on web spanning across the whole sidewalk. I couldn’t stop in time. I looked back and found the web had disappeared. I couldn’t find the spider anywhere. :eek:
Yeah, well, the ones I find in my current apartment are brown and shiny and lurk under clothes on the floor, cardboard boxes, etc. They may not be brown recluses but I’ve never been able to make certain without killing them. A shame, really - if I knew for sure they were harmless, I wouldn’t mind having them around as exterminators.
I guess this is a good a thread as any to share my latest spider terror story even though it doesn’t involve my face.
A couple of weeks ago, I was taking a shower and somewhere mid-shampooing I happened to glance down at my feet. I saw a dark blob floating among the soap bubbles and figured it must be lint or something…until it touched my foot at which point I realized it felt very un-lint like.
My thought process after that realization went something like this:
“Hmm, that doesn’t feel like fuzz or lint, wonder what it is? Paper? Better get it before it clogs the drain”
Bends down to take a closer look
“Holy crap, it’s moving! Must be a bug…”
*Object flips itself over, revealing 8 legs and a red hour-glass spot.
“:eek: :eek: :eek:”
Spider brushes against my foot again
“GAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!! OHMYGODITSTOUCHINGMEITSABLACKWIDOWANDITSTOUCHINGME! AHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
I don’t think I’ve ever moved that fast in my entire life. Even after Mr. Greywolf assured me repeatedly that it was dead-smushed and flushed down the toliet, it took me a couple hours to calm down and stop involuntarily shuddering and checking my foot for bite marks. :eek:
Oh, that cracked me up. Not in a mocking way because I completely understand the reaction. I’ve done similar things in the past.
I’m afraid of spiders as well, but I think I’m getting better with it now. I know I have one of those white ones in my room, but I’m hesitant to do anything about it. I’d rather not kill it because that makes me feel bad, and if I capture it and put it outside, then the cold may kill it. And I would be responsible for it’s death. So I leave it be and hope it does the same with me.
I probably would have wet myself, audiobottle, but the desk chair I was sitting in at the time was new, and I valued my life too much to have my mother take it from me for something like that.
Didn’t stop me from beating the ever-loving crud out of that earwig though. I like to think I’m equal-opportunity grossness-squisher – earwigs, silverfish, spiders, those big green caterpillars that crawl across your hand when you’re gardening. Squish 'em! Squish 'em all!
Preach it, Pookah.
Spiders are deaf, so it couldn’t have heard your dog’s bark. It probably just sensed the vibrations from its bark. Or, if the dog was within the spider’s field of view, it might have reacted to the dog’s motion. (Some spiders are virtually blind, while others have pretty acute eyesight over a 360 degree arc.)
And when the spider raised its front legs, it was probably baring its fangs-- a common defensive move on their part, intended mostly as a deterrent.
If one is uncertain and has good reason to believe that it’s a brown recluse, then I can’t fault someone for killing the eight-legged creature. I normally choose to let spiders live, but I have been known to kill black widows and their ilk.
Once a long time back, as I was engrossed with something on my computer, I reached for my glass of water to take a drink. Right before the water hit my lips, my eyes focused away from the screen, and onto the big, fat, hairy spider that was floating on the surface of the liquid. I slowly and carefully eased the glass away from my face, put it back on my desk, and laid down on my bed and had a good cry.
Now I always look before I drink.
I understand spiders favor corners…
I understand spiders favor corners…
what the hell is that quick reply supposed to do anyway???!!!
So, I’m in Darwin, visiting my Australian flatmate’s parents. Graciously, they give me the whole downstairs to myself - there’s a foldout bed, a TV for watching, and my own bathroom. All’s well.
Until I go to take a shower the next morning. There’s two, count 'em, two huge black spiders in my bathroom. S’okay, maybe not huge, but quite big. US half dollar sized, Aussie 20 cent piece sized. And they move like the wind! I’d just convinced myself to buck up and go ahead when one flies behind the towels. That’s the last straw. I might’ve convinced myself to take a shower, but no way am I drying off with a spider-encrusted towel.
As I fling open the door to go upstairs, I notice another one! Guarding my door! Keeping me in the spider hellhole! I threw kleenexes at him until he scurried away.
I go upstairs and explain my plight. “Hi, I’m Snickers, and I’m an arachnophobe.” Her father smiles kindly and pats me on the head as he shows me to their shower. What a great guy.
I tell my flatmate this story when I get back and she just laughs at me. Then she confesses that while she can shower with the spiders there, she’s just as happy when they’re not around.
Gah! Horrid things.
I also like spiders, and rather than smush them I move them. But for the record, most house spiders are specifically adapted to live inside houses, and putting them outside is likely to be bad for their health: temperature, humidity, etc. Me, I take them into the basement. Or I just leave them alone.
Of course, I live in Seattle, where the only venemous creatures we have to be concerned with are fringe theater critics.
venemous? :smack:
I can play this game!
Picture, if you will, a young Jonathan Chance. A lad of about 13 or so. A lad on summer vacation.
His favorite hobby? Reading science fiction, fantasy and horror novels. Old ones.
His latest target? A 2AM reading of The Dunwich Horror by H. P. Lovecraft.
The boy lies on his bed, alone with his terror. The book engrosses him in it’s lonely pool of light.
When suddenly a silverfish more than 2 inches long drops out of nowhere on the book. On the very same spot our young subjects eyes were resting.
‘AAHHHHHHHH!!!’ yells our victim.
And right until that bike hit the web, I bet the spider was thinking he hit the jackpot.
I’d be hopping around like my ass was on fire!
I ate a spider (inadvertently) that was perched on my pen.
My husband was in Vietnam doing the “long walk in the jungle” thing and a spider the size of his face dropped down IN FRONT OF HIS FACE!
He said it was still better than being shot at. I don’t think I believe that.
Twice I’ve had spiders drop in front of my face. I was at my aunt’s house, sitting on the couch, eating ice cream and minding my own business, when a black spider dropped right in front of me. Normally I don’t mind spiders, but that was a little to much. After that, I learned to use her cat as a bug radar. If Mac was staring at the wall/ceiling, nine times out of ten there was an icky bug. So when I was there, I made sure to keep an eye on Mac.
Usually I think spiders are pretty cool though. I used to have a tarantula, and he was the coolest pet. He was quiet, and he didn’t smell. And he was silky soft. He also never dropped out of nowhere in front of my face, and spent most of his time safely contained behind glass.
Spiders aren’t so bad. Huge 2 inch long palmetto bug/roach things that fly at you on the other hand? shudders