MAD magazines?
Yeah they work well. 
We had a spider in our basement bathroom for several months, who I named “Bathroom Spider.” Her descendants were around for years.
Google Heteropoda venatoria sometime. That’s the Huntsman spider, aka the Giant Crab spider. But I recommend a loading dose of Xanax first.
Years ago, my then-girlfriend called me around 2 a.m. and woke me from a perfectly good sleep (dreaming of puppies and kittens, as I recall).
“THERE’S A GIANT SPIDER ON MY CEILING ABOVE MY BED! COME OVER AND KILL IT!”
Like an idiot, I assumed this meant “ordinary spider, magnified by panic.”
So I said, “What’s the matter, honey? Afraid of a widdle bitty spider?”
“GET OVER HERE RIGHT NOW AND KILL IT!”
That should have been my clue.
Instead, I said, “I’m on my way,” because I was younger, dumber, and still thought good-boyfriend points were a real currency.
When I got there, I nobly announced that I didn’t want to kill the spider, just shoo it outside. Because apparently I was not only stupid, but compassionate.
She said, “You better shoo him real damn far from my house, then,” handed me a feather duster and a large plastic cup, and shoved me toward the bedroom like a Roman crowd sending a Christian into the lion pit.
I looked up at the ceiling.
My jaw hit the floor.
This was not a spider. This was a face-hugger that had been crossbred with a catcher’s mitt. For a brief moment I considered two options: fight the monster, or break up with my girlfriend on the spot and flee into the night.
Unfortunately, the dumbest part of my anatomy cast the deciding vote, so I chose combat.
I climbed up on the bed on tiptoe, armed with the cup and feather duster, both of which now seemed wildly inadequate for the job at hand. The cup in particular was giving off a strong “I was designed for orange juice, not satanic wildlife” vibe.
I tried to feather-dust the beast into the cup.
By “tried,” I mean “failed in a way that still wakes me up sometimes.”
Because instead of dropping obediently into the cup like some ordinary, civilized spider, the huge bastard launched itself directly onto my head. Which is exactly the kind of move an asshole spider makes when it wants to humiliate a man in front of his girlfriend.
Yes, I screamed.
Not in a brave, manly way either. I screamed like a startled bridesmaid.
My girlfriend, rather than helping, pointed and screamed too, which I felt showed a real lack of teamwork.
I survived. My dignity did not.
Not long after, I broke up with the girlfriend, and eventually moved far away from Florida, where the sunshine is lovely and the wildlife appears to have been designed by lunatics.
Here’s a re-creation of the battle, as a remember it.
Wow.
Nicely told, @Tibby .
You men and your thinking brains. Causes more problems. 
Oh man, I know what you mean.
By the way, none of my co-workers is under the impression that I am not fucking off right now. They all heard that burst of giggles.
Squirt both with ordinary dish soap.
They will then die.
And then you–YOU–will be the only victor!
{TARZAN YELL}AWWAWWAWAWWW!! AWAWAWAWWA!{/TARZAN YELL}
I want to thank you for sharing a truly funny & well-written story, and especially for the snippet quoted above.
The “shoving a Christian into the lion pit” part was a nice touch as well.
Gold star sticker for you!
This reminds me of the “major spider” scene in Annie Hall.
What walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon, and three legs in the evening?
I don’t know, but it’s having a cage match in my shower!
That’s a gorgeous creature!
that would easily qualify as “peak SDMB post from around 2008”
tip to the hat for that nice piece of internetz-funs!
Count me on team spider. They’re excellent negotiation tools in the right space.
Some years back, I needed to take my car to the the tyre place. This particular place was one I’d not had good experiences at, but having a big rip in the tyre, only having a crappy temp spare and a shift at work later in the day, I wasn’t in a place to shop around and it was right round the corner.
I disliked the shop mostly as it was one of those annoyingly macho places, where women were seen either as the main feature of a calendar in the office or wide-eyed innocent walking wallets. I could see the big smirk spreaking on the guy’s face as I got out the car and he immediately placed me in category two. I’d barely got out the car before he’d started checking round the car, kicking all the other tyres and making those little intakes of breath which indicated something he was going to try and fleece me for. I wanted a tyre, the cheapest available for my mobile rust bucket, and to get out of there as fast as I could.
The guy was just building up with the ‘You know, you should really…’ when he opened my car boot to get the old tyre out, and one of the biggest spiders I’ve ever seen in the UK jumped out of the corner where it was hiding almost on to his hand.
The guy screamed like a little girl.
I carefully picked up the spider, said hello to it, and placed it in a bush nearby. The guy stared at me in horror and visibly deflated.
I got the cheap tyre, replaced in record time, with no further bother.
You had some good karma coming!
I lived in a big group house right after college. Every morning, at least one huge banana slug would crawl out of the drain onto the shower stall walls to hang out and do whatever slugs do. They must have been 4-5 inches long and a good inch or more in diameter.
No one ever fought to be the first to use the shower.
Slugs, on the other hand…
I once found one not just in the kitchen. Not even just in the cupboard where all my kitchen equipment was kept, but snuggled up behind the blades in the immersion blender I was just about to put in my chunky vegetable soup. A big fat grey slimy slug.
I wasn’t a fan of slugs before that incident. I’ve also never used a blender since without checking it for slugs. It’s got to be 15 years now.
Ah, great, something new to worry about.
I’ve about had it with these MFing slugs in my MFing blender! 
Hoary old joke:
Q: What’s worse than finding a slug in your blender?
A: Finding just the tippy tail of a slug in your blender.
Nothing spices up chunky vegetable soup like discovering your immersion blender was preparing to make escargot purée.
And I’m sure I never will again. And nobody I explain it to will ever think that my reason is at all sane. So . . . thanks for that!!
While you’re looking for slugs, don’t forget to check for spiders & snakes.
And that elephant that Groucho Marx shook out of his pajamas.