I’ll stop procrastinating tomorrow.
Bluepony, I kill bugs. Don’t like 'em. I kill 'em for sport. Got several bug trophy heads hanging on my wall. Heh.
I have this ex-boyfriend who reacted like your wife, though. But only to spiders. He had no trouble with the six-leggers, but let a little teeny house spider stroll across the room, and he would leave, and tell me to kill it. This man is 6’4" tall, and weighs about 190 pounds. I’m 5’1", and weigh…less than 190. So, like you, I’d make a big deal about slaying the beasts. I’d go put on my Xena outfit, run & do flips through the apartment, (which annoyed my downstairs neighbor, until he found out that I was actually slaying beasts. He thought that was cool.) and eventually I’d just step on them. Then I’d make my boyfriend buy me a gift. 
This is my new sig. Thank Wally. It was his idea.
“I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.”
Thank you Bluepony! Quite a compliment. And I would never deprive a big strong man such as yourself from protecting us from those nasty beasties! And, when he’s here, I always let my hubby kill em off. 
Revtim, I guess it’s a good thing that you’re not in charge of the military then. You don’t know why I hate those nasties so much, so don’t assume I’m just a wuss. And, have you ever been to Texas? They’re not little gnats here, let me tell you!
<bopping Jo3sh on head for wisecrack about crabs and lobsters> They are NOT!
You sing in my consciousness like a counterpoint to my life.
L.L.
In my relationship, my other half deals with cockroaches and (especially) spiders, as I’m an arachnophobe. I’ll take out the woodlice, wasps and bees quite happily.
Snakes and mice and spiders and such don’t bother me, but every time I see a roach it takes years off the end of my life. My husband has to deal with them; I can’t. They come into the house when the weather changes. I’m talking 3-inch-long bugs. You spray them with diazinon and they go up on their back legs and wiggle their forelegs at you. (I’ll have to try the Fantastik next time, thanks, rather breathe that than bug spray.)
I can feel the hair stand up on the back of my head, just thinking about it.
What’s real bad is coming downstairs in the morning, barefoot, to get a cup of coffee; being half asleep and not really turning on the light; and stepping on -
(yuck)
I draw the line at crunchy bugs - namely beetle-type things if there’s someone else available to kill them. I guess it’s the sound that gets to me.
My husband can’t deal with spiders (he was bitten by one in a VERY sensitive area as a child)
So our deal is that I’ll take care of spiders and the crunchy bugs are his job
Actually, other than the poisonous ones, I will tolerate spiders because they eat things that I like even less.
Grow your own dope! Plant a man.
(Wally made me say it)
<<<<Bluepony, I kill bugs. Don’t like 'em. I kill 'em for sport. Got several bug trophy heads hanging on my wall. Heh. >>>>>>
Funny Cristi!
Another bug killer here, and with the usual exceptions. I’ll take out the Daddy Long Legs, and ladybugs.
I had a gross out last year, doing the yard work. There was a huge dead rat out in the side yard. First I came in and sat down to think the whole thing over!! * Then * I went back out with a shovel and picked it up and threw it into the woods, ::shudder:::
Judy
“Um, according to who? Nothing more than a high brow troll, though occasionally the bi polar personality swung in a constructive direction on innocuous topics.” Omniscient
When I was in Bombay as part of a Royal Navy mobile maintenance crew we had a Chiaf who was about 5’2 tall.
He swears that the roach that he felt(through blankets !)walking up his bed was wearing army boots and carrying a kitbag.
He decided that a fatal dose of bug killer might be enough to do himself in too so he ran off.
In the hotel lobby the doorman was busy kicking cat sized rats off the front stairway so the chief went and slept on the ship even though it was in choas at the time.
I’m In Charge of icky things at our house. Always have been. I catch the bugs that don’t bite and aren’t poisonous and throw them out, roaches and ants are goners by default, squish the dangerous bugs, and let spur of the moment decide whether or not the spider has to die. I have two that live on the wall above my computer. I don’t share this info with hubby.
Hubby is a first class arachnophobe.
Happy little Sunday afternoon, some years ago, I’m curled up with a Dave Barry column and a cup of coffee. Hubby is to be outside mowing the lawn. A few moments later, I hear this … sound outside. I didn’t know men could scream like that.
He comes rushing inside (after peeling himself off the side of the house), still screaming. There’s a spider in the shed, above the lawnmower. Not just any spider, either. It’s SpiderZilla. It’s the size of his hand, no his face. It’s huge. It, gasp, GROWLED at him.
Uh huh. Right. I tried not to roll my eyes too much as I joined him in the yard. Well, actually, I went into the yard, he returned to cowering against the side of the house. Apparently I was alone in the extermination of said evil mutant Hanford Spider (We were in WA, near the Hanford Nuke plant).
I go into the shed. I see the lawnmower. I keep looking. I look around a lot. For a long time. I start to push the lawnmower out, really annoyed. Then, and only then, do I spot the web, up above the shed door.
It’s a beautiful orb weaver, the spider’s body no bigger than the end of a finger. The spider is, of course, minding it’s own business, and NOWHERE NEAR the lawnmower. I get the machine out without even disturbing the web.
Hubby is still on the far other side of the yard, against the house. “Didja kill it?”
He gets the stare. I don’t answer, I just stare. He finally starts looking sheepish. He offers again that it had big nasty teeth that it bared at him, threatened to eat him, and, yes, it growled at him. Macho or not, he fled in full scale retreat from an itty bug.
Does Maria have this problem with Arnold?
When I gird my loins to do battle with the myriad forms of insecta I make damn sure I’m prepared.
First: Inform the wife of the identity and whereabouts of the miscreant. Example: Black spider in the tub.
Second: Inform the wife of my whereabouts before the mission commences. Example: At the pub playing 8 ball.
Third: Give the wife ample time to carry out the assasination before returning to base. Example: Four hours.
I like bugs. Most bugs, anyway. I don’t kill any insects that I don’t have to. If they wander inside and start to get obnoxious, I show them the way out, just like I do for anybody else. Otherwise, I ignore them. If they’re ants, I get rid of whatever’s attracting them, and they go away. Cockroaches, on the other hand, get annihilated whenever I happen across one, which isn’t very often where I live. Spiders? I love spiders! Any spider who wants to live with me can, as long as they don’t get underfoot. Exception: Black widows. Black widows are destroyed on sight. Now, if you want to know about women and bug-squashing, then talk to my mother, the ruthless stopmer, swatter, and squasher of offensive insectoid life.
Heck is where you go when you don’t believe in Gosh.
I’m a scooper when it comes to bugs. And we got plenty of em out here in the woods. I just get a glass and a piece of cardboard, and take em outside. Sometimes I’ll smash brown recluses, but feel bad about it, so try to catch & carry them too.
I used to be terrified of wasps, becoming paralyzed and doing the Poisonous Insect Screech, probably because, as a child, I saw my brother fall into a wasp’s nest and get the hell stung out of him. I got over it, and now put em outside. Haven’t been stung in the process either.
Spiders I love. One time I took the time to watch one spin her web. It took about two hours, and was an incredible feat of engineering. I could never snuff such an amazing critter!
insects and spiders are interesting enough, but the real action comes when you have to get a bat out of a house. Most people are willing to abandon the house rather than get the thing. Although I’ve gotta admit even I took a pass on seek-and-destroy when my neighbor had a badger in her living room.
Do you ever get the feeling that everybody thinks you’re paranoid?
Spiders. Ugh. You don’t live in Florida, I take it, where the banana spiders do get as big as your hand (literally). And they spin webs between two trees, which is actually good for entertainment if your friend walks through one ahead of you. Inevitably they will end up with the most gawd-awful spider attached to their shoulder or neck. They go into this frantic seizure/flail/dance thing screaming at you to get it off while you’re rolling on the ground, weak with laughter.
And the roaches round here are longer than your finger.
shudder
I’m the killer in my house of three women (I’m the only male(even our pets are female))
Spiders, get a piece of TP pick it up, and flush, No problem. Flies…squash. Mice, a good old fashioned mouse trap…snap!!! We tried the sticky pads, but when one of them chased my wife, while half stuck on it, that was that(didn’t help that I laughed my ass off when she told me(wish I would’ve saw it though, somehing to really laugh about), was on the couch for a week).
When I was a kid (10 or so), I would be commanded to go into my (5 years older) sister’s room to save her from a lone wasp flying in her window. Can you imagine? A 15yro needing her 10yro kid sister to save her from a bug?
That said, I am most certainly not in the squeally, squirmy category of girl when it comes to reacting to bugs. I tend to scoop and save, BTW, excepting ants–the evil, godless little beasts!–and roaches. I also do this in my classroom–the kids flip out, squeal “a cucaracha!” and I shoo the little )or big) bugger outside. The only insects that seriously give me the heebie-jeebies are the big ole hawk moths–those suckers have a six inch wingspan! Being that I have long hair, I have this weird paranoia they’re going to get tangled in it.
Insects and arachnids fascinate me. Once, while unpacking Xmas stuff, an enormous spider (I believe it was a trap door spider…never did figure it out. Too big and heavy to be a garden spider/wolf spider/etc, not hairy enough to be a tarantula) with a thick body at least an inch long came crawling out. My mom freaked and left the room; Dad and I caught it and kept it in a jar for a few days (used to research what it was, unsuccessfully) before turning it loose in the back yard.
The only thing I killed that I’m wishing I’d turned loose now is a small scorpion that came crawling out of my bathroom sink when I poured Drano down in. It was small, not more than an inch or so long, and light yellow/brown. Thinking it might be poisonous, I killed it in a ziploc bag. Now I’m wishing I’d just tossed him on the hill.
A final thought: rodents and reptiles are adorable and cause me no further anxiety. In fact, one of my favorite pets was a ball python I had in college. She was gorgeous, and very tame (well, for a reptile). However, feeding her cute rats got to be too unsettling.
Teaching: The ultimate birth control method.
Bluepony, I am shocked and amazed at you. Mrs. Bluepony is an exceptional kickass goddess who has defended her home as a soldier and a cop. This tender Amazon has created a home for (against documented odds) and is gestating the wanker-waving BlueColt To Be even as we speak.
You are a warrior as well, a buffed (even though unfairly metabolically gifted), tough stalwart Guy Type. You, blessed with a soft hearted, tough minded Valkyrie to share your life and bed, quibble over a few BUGS?!
Gird your loins–DON’T tell us how–go forth and smash the beasties. And if the NatGeo is a problem, be glad it isn’t something truly vomitous like “Martha Stewart Embalmed”.
BTW, quaff not deeply of this testosterone cocktail. I catch and free mice and snakes with my hands (ditto a bat, sans hands), stomp roaches, silverfish or assorted nasties–but turn into a jittering wreck over spiders.
But even as a spider-phobic, female non-jock I’ve mastered the Vicious Rolled Towel Flick From Hell. Fergit the NatGeo; roll up a towel (dish towels are good: I keep on just for this purpose), get it tight, advance, twirl, twirl, SNAP and flick…
No wallstains, the spider is 1-gee pulp in a tidy exoskeleton and you can have fun measuring the relative loft and distance.
Sheesh. Marital advice I never thought I’d have to offer. “Dr.” Laura would probably advise plugging in w/ your service pistol, and “Martha” would cover it w/ gold leaf to hot-glue into a wreath.
Veb
I forgot about those Florida spiders.
For all my Xena Warrior Princessing in my earlier post, I must admit that those Florida monsters scare the living crap out of me. I mean, they paralyze me with fear. God, they’re like something out of a 1950’s big-bug movie. AAAAAGH!
My previously mentioned boyfriend, on the other hand, is not scared of those Seventh Circle Spiders. He says it’s because he can actually see them. The little house spiders might get on him without him knowing it. He says he’ll actually see one of those big mf* coming, and be able to take appropriate avoidance maneuvers.
This is my new sig. Thank Wally. It was his idea.
“I made my husband join a bridge club. He jumps next Tuesday.”
I really like spiders. PLEASE, y’all, don’t kill em!!!
Suzeanne, thank you for that story. ROFLMAO!!
I don’t feel so bad about my r**** phobia now!
Great stories, everyone!!
You sing in my consciousness like a counterpoint to my life.
L.L.