Just reading this thread makes me feel all oogy. I guess that means I’m a candidate for the program. I’ll have to look around and see if something like that is available near me. Good to know it’s working. I’ve always wondered…
I like spiders. Like having 'em in the house. Keeps the other bugs down. I don’t even mind having one on me — as long as I know what it is, and as long as I put it there.
What I don’t like is being surprised.
Couple of weeks ago, I’m sitting on the couch playing Civ III. My wife is lying in bed reading. As other players of Civ III can attest, I was really focused on the game, to the exclusion of all else. When suddenly: tickle scratch on my forearm—
And I was already hollering “HYURRGGGHH!” by the time I had turned my eyes to look at a big mother (huntsman?) on my arm. Quick flick of the wrist, and it’s on the floor.
Immediately, of course, I feel foolish, because I know it can’t hurt me, and there’s no reason to freak out. I’m not an arachnophobe. If I’d seen it before it had climbed up on me, I wouldn’t have had a problem.
Anyway, my wife calls out from the back, with a tinge of concern: “Honey?”
“Nothing,” I say sheepishly. “Big spider on my arm.”
“You okay?” she says.
“Yes,” I reply, a little irritated at myself.
The spider’s just sitting on the carpet, perhaps surprised at finding itself airborne. I gently shoo it outside, muttering with tongue partly in cheek: “Goddammit, don’t sneak up on me like that. Little bastard.”
Anyway, I hope to welcome you to the non-phobic club, Crusoe. Spiders are really neat and they’re fantastic to have around. I’d rather have spiders in my basement than carpenter ants in my framing, certainly.
Eeek! Gratz Crusoe! Reading the thread (and some of the posts I skimmed, the detailed ones) has my skin crawling. I can “feel” things crawling on my arms and legs, and keep looking, even thought I know there is nothing there. Grrr. I would love to go to one of those treatments, but I won’t 'cos they make you look at spiders :rolleyes: nice logic, eh?
I’ve never gotten around to getting furniture, so I have an army-surplus air mattress a friend gave me. (What is it they say about guys? “Bears with furniture”? Where does that leave me?) So I’m hanging out on the floor, elbow on the floor and head on my hand, when I see a dark shape moving away from me. A garden spider about 25mm long had come out from under the mattress near my armpit. I caught it in a cup and took it outside.
SHUDDER
Congratulations Crusoe on your extraordinary courage. Even if you remain mildly arachnophobic, it will still be reassuring to know that you have now experienced the worst possible thing in the world - a huge spider on you - and you did not implode!
Sometimes I imagine this happening to me, and I can’t see how I would survive sane.
My worst spider experience:
A few years ago we were being shown around a house with a view to buying it. It was just an ordinary, tidy, suburban house in an inoffensive street. While the the house-owner was showing us the sitting room, I noticed a bank of glass boxes against one of the walls. Fish tanks? Gerbil cages? Post-modern shoeboxes? Unconcerned, I walked up and looked inside. Each one contained one or two HUGE black tarantulas, surrounded (and this was the worst bit, somehow) by a net of white webs.
I didn’t scream, or say anything, I just turned and hurtled out of the house. On the way out, just to cap it all, I just had time to notice a dead, but equally vast spider mounted on the wall in the hallway.
The owner came out and tried to reassure me “they can’t get out, you know.” No point trying to explain to her that I would never enter that street again, never mind her house.
PS: Does anyone else find that the memory, or after-image, of spider-experiences is worse than the actual spider? on you
Oops - the last “on you” in my post is a mistake. It isn’t on you, I promise…eek
Good job you didn’t come to Londope. Some meanie planned on buying a plastic spider at the natural history museum and putting it on the table at the pub.
I told them that was mean and inappropriate.
Female tarantulas can live up to 20 years. 
Ooh, in that case maybe the spider you handled was called “Charlotte”, Crusue.
(Or did they Spaniardize it as “Carlotta”? I can’t remember now)
pan
I quite like spiders in general, its the thought of them running over me that gives me shivers, but when they creep up unawares is just horrid.
I had a friend to stay the other week and was just walking back down the corridor after getting a towel out of the cupboard, deep in thought and not looking where i was going when i was suddenly brought back to reality :eek: when i very very nearly trod on this MASSIVE (for a house spider in england - size of half the palm of my hand, with big body and fat legs urghhh) spider, running circles in my path. I jumped up and down, made a lot of weird noises and leaped over it (that was the worst part - it was in my way to safety, and somone brave enough to get rid of it)… my friend scooped it up in a cup and chucked it out of the window…
Got in from work at bout 2.30am on saturday, and there was the bloody thing (sure it was the same one) sitting on the kitchen floor!! :eek:
The big effing spider was called ‘Gina’. She was quite docile.
Ironically, that is the name of my mother.
kabbes - are all your family named for spiders?
Is your real name Peter Parker?
No, but my auntie Garden certainly started getting looks after she married into the Spida family.
p