The Horror In The Fourth Grade Classroom

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
21

He he he! Sounds like my morning.

Fitting a doggie door to the backdoor at my girlies house while she’s making breakfast. Huge scream like she just got bitten by a crocodile or a bear embryo popped out of one of the eggs she cracked…which scared the crap out of me and almost caused me to drop the angle grinder i was holding. I stopped and looked around to see a little mouse about an inch long come shooting across the floor and under the couch with the dog close behind it. Ooow fun! I like little critters, they bring out the crocodile hunter in all of us. I got a cardboard tube from a roll of Xmas paper and blocked one end with a sock and then stuffed a blanket under all of the sides of the couch allowing no escape for our little rodent captive. The carboard tube was also under one corner of the couch so the little squeekers only way out was down the tube, blocked at the other end. Got the broom handle, stuffed it under the couch and worked the mouse towards the tube…perfect capture. Now what? Take mouse outside, inside the tube, point at girlie and wait for the mouse to jump out…worked a treat, I’ve made a mouse gun. Only drawback was the horrified screams, no breakfast and getting locked outside. And the dog ate the mouse.

I had been forgiven because about five minutes later, while i was outside pondering how much it will cost me to get her trust back, there was another scream…ghost of the mouse returned to reap it’s revenge?? No. A big cockroach sitting on the bed where she went to sulk. The door was flung open and a finger was pointed at the bedroom with distinct instructions to kill. I went and grabbed the cocky in one hand and a screwed up tissue in the other and walked back into the kitchen. She asked if i had it, yep, i said, here, catch and threw the tissue at her.

Dear Og, I swear on my testicles never to do something like that again because I’m sure her scream has perforated my eardrums and I’m possibly going to have to get her a new car for Xmas so she’ll even talk to me again!!

I laughed pretty hard though, still chuckling. I’m not sure if I’ll go back there tonight, might be safer to sleep in the middle of the highway. She’s the type that’ll shave my eyebrows for revenge.

22

I can’t go to bed NOW! There are spiders waiting to crawl all over me… tickle WHAT WAS THAT!!?? I feel like something’s on me right NOW! tickle tickle AIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE!

I don’t like you for telling that story, nosiree!

23

Yes, it did occur to me that she might be arachnophobic. This was one of the things that crossed my mind when I stood there staring into that box of fake greenery and envisioning seething arachnoid horror erupting in all directions the minute I jammed my hand into it.

This was one of the factors which led me to do what I did as opposed to, “Well, lady, good luck wi’yer problem, I’m gonna go eat my lunch.”

24

There are no words for how creeped out I am right now.

25

And I’m sorry, Sanguine. I’ve already gotten three irritated emails from women who are a bit bent with me about this story.

Guess I oughtta stick to watermelons and Jehovah’s witnesses…

26

[Suzanne Sugarbaker]The man should have to kill the bug![/Suzanne Sugarbaker]

27

Spider murderer.

The fact that you found many dead crickets in there shows that the spiders kept that box from from being infested with the chirpy little buggers.

Here in our household, we have an intense spider relocation program, and the murder of the eight-legged dynamos is strickly forbidden.

It may also have something to with the fact that Spider Woman, is my SO.
Hmmm…maybe.

28

Me likes spiders. Although I have to admit that if Mama was as big as it sounds I’d have thought twice or even four times before sticking my hand in there. In my case I would have carried the box outside and turned it over in the schoolyard. Thank somebody we don’t get spiders that size up here. And I think the Wolf spider that has been living in my dining room keeping it fly free has gone to her reward. In the spring the kids will find plenty of work :smiley:
*big spiders up here have name tags and carry blue books and ask “What do you know about the Church…”

Just kidding!

29

I agree.

I agree.

I agree.

In fact, it’s taken ten years, but I have broken my wife of the habit of wanting to kill spiders… largely because I’ve finally pounded past her reflexive terror of the things to reinforce the idea that spiders eat other bugs, and one spider eliminates hundreds of other bugs that would otherwise bother HER.

So now we catch-and-release.

On the other hand, the spiders at MY house are tiny little things that couldn’t bite me any more than I could bite through a truck tire.

THIS one, on the other hand, looked like IT could bite through a truck tire without much trouble.

And you know what? It’s really hard to concentrate and make snap decisions when there’s a gibbering woman behind you making weird noises and jumping up and down and twisting herself in knots…

30

SanguineSpider’s afraid of spiders??? Daaaaang…

31

in my office you would have gotten an official certificate and the golden shoe award.

32

I can handle spiders and mice and such as long as they don’t surprise me… mice I can handle better than spiders (which is good as we’ve had a couple in our 4th floor apartment and my Mom is absolutely wigged out by them. I’m the one who deals with the humane traps.)

If that spider is half as big as I think it was… I’d be freaking too. I wouldn’t be screaming though I’d just get really shaky and attempt to be calm while I went to find someone (anyone) who could handle them better than I could. I’m glad the biggest wild spider I’ve seen up here was barely a couple centimeters long… and I could handle that one as it wasn’t me who found it but rather a tent full of girl guides who immediately shrieked and looked to me (their leader) to dispose of it… I caught it in a cup and sent it on it’s way. But if it surprises me… I scream… like once I was gardening (relatives were away for a summer and we were weeding their garden) a spider walked over my bare leg… I screamed, brushed it away and after my heart rate got back to normal I was fine.

So am I a girly girl? Or just one who deals well as long as I’m expecting it…?

33

Flutterby, I am not a girl. I am a male. A large hairy male, in fact, with a history rich in testosterone and courageous stupidity.

I also have no little experience with spiders. Down in deep south Texas, where I grew up, rain is a seasonal thing. You get no rain all year, practically, and then it all happens during a two week period in the fall, just about. Yes, I’m exaggerating, but not much.

And when it happens, we get some gully-washers.

Why is this relevant? Because the chaparral down thereabouts is crawling with “bird spiders,” tarantulas, trapdoor spiders and other large arachnids, all of which are pretty closely related. They generally live, like trapdoor spiders, in little pits they dig and then seal with a little manhole cover made of dirt and silk.

Guess what happens when you have a hard, sudden afternoon rain, followed by bright, warm, sunny weather?

You got it. Every spider for miles has to step out for a bit. Their holes are full of water. THEY ALL COME OUT AT ONCE.

…and go for a wander. ALL AT ONCE.

In town, this wasn’t any big deal. For some reason, tarantulas don’t much like to live in town.

…but a mile or two outside town, now, it’s a different story. I remember a few occasions that made me wonder if I hadn’t somehow fallen into an obscure low-budget horror movie starring William Shatner and Susan Day George.

My point here is that I grew up with giant freakin’ spiders. They generally don’t much bother me, and I leave them alone. They eat OTHER bugs, which makes them okay in my book.

But… tarantulas, for all their fearsomeness, are not stupid. In fact, if you confront one, he will do one of two things:

(A) Rise up on his four back legs and wave his front legs at you and hiss threateningly, or
(B) hunch down and try to slowly sneak the hell away from you.

If the threatening trick doesn’t work, they will generally run like hell, unless you grab them. THEN they’ll bite the hell out of you. But tarantulas, while they are aggressive, are NOT stupid. They’ll usually take one look at YOU, and react the way YOU would to a potentially dangerous being the size of a skyscraper. You can almost hear them thinking, “Oookay… move slow… careful… maybe he won’t notice me… carefully… slowly… get the hell OUT of here…”

…and that was what I kind of expected THIS spider to do. I should have known, from the way the smaller one reacted, that it would not.

THESE spiders weren’t tarantulas. They were some kind of hunting spider… and MOST large hunting spiders are insanely aggressive and mortally stupid. They’ll attack damn near anything that annoys them. And I annoyed the hell out of this one.

And… well… durnit, she surprised me. I mean, I was EXPECTING a spider in there. I was NOT expecting something half the size of my hand, and out for murder…

All this weekend, as I have read irritated emails from women all over the country, griping at me for creepin’ 'em out, I wonder how well Mrs. Tulip has been sleeping these past couple nights…

34

Well I just hope not to encounter a spider anytime soon…

Which I probably won’t unless I’m unlucky enough to have some that snuck up through the walls and into the storage closet as a warm place for winter.

At least I don’t have to deal with huge spiders!! Like I said the biggest one I’ve encountered not at a museum or zoo is only a couple of centimeters… I’d freak if I lived in a place with huge spiders shivers I would eventually come to deal with it though… I can… I just don’t like to.

35

Excellent. Brilliant. Well done.

My ex has taught elementary school for years now, mostly 3rd or 4th grade. He tells a good story now and then, but nothing like yours. One story involved a kid who brought a kitchen knife
to school and charged other kids to look at it because it was “the knife O.J. used”. Police got involved on that one, which always breaks down a tough guy into a sniveling pile of snot.

If you ever choose to write about the teaching part of your life, maybe my ex can git ya some ideas. He’s been in the business for almost 30 years now - and, man, does he earn his pay.

36

This afternoon, I got an Email from an angry woman in Ohio.

After reading my story, she realized she needed to go out into the garage and get HER Christmas tree.

And after going out into the garage, she couldn’t bring herself to actually touch the box. She stood there… petrified… and … POKED it a few times.

Ghidorah, Monster From Hell, did not erupt out of the box.

Finally, in a fit of something between pique and terror, she went and got a pair of salad tongs, and KNOCKED OVER the box. And then kicked it a few times.

There were no spiders in the box. Just last year’s Christmas tree and so forth.

Her tree this year has somewhat fewer ornaments. And no lights. And it’s apparently all my fault.

Jeez. Nobody creeped out when I wrote about the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Makes me wonder if anyone would have complained if I’d killed THEM?

37

Well Master Wang-Ka all I can say is some people don’t deserve computers.

Our tree two years ago had been a nest for an infestation of rats in our garage. That was truly a nasty sight! Personally a spider that hadn’t damaged the tree is preferable to a years worth of rat shit and a half eaten tree.

God people get a freakin life.

38

…rats live in trees?

Man, I thought “tree rats” were actually “squirrels.”

39

I opened our christmas tree box two years ago and found several possums nesting within (Australian possums, might I add, which are apparently more vicious and nasty-tempered than american opossums).

They’re also protected because they’re native wildlife.

sigh

That was a delicate tree removal operation.

I seem to remember that was the year the termites invaded the other box, containing all our wooden tree ornaments, family heirlooms lovingly imported from Scotland…

40

No darlin… nesting in the box our tree was stored in. It was a nasty, smelly mess.