Originally Posted by Pumpkin
AWWWW they sooo cuuute
Get that thing away from meeee!!
At a friends house years ago, they were trying to get an electricity reading and couldn't locate the box. I found it in their garage. Opened the door of the box to be confronted by a web and a huge, angry spider sat in the middle. I didn't stay very long but I swear it was holding a baseball bat.
I sometimes wonder if they ever got their electricity reading.
Florida is the Australia of America, so we have lots of spiders too. I tend to have a live and let live policy, unless I know they're venomous, like Black Widows and Brown Recluses.
...
A few months ago I got bit by a spider and my foot got swollen and terrible so I hate them now. All of them.
Just kidding, I hated them all before that.
Don't have a problem with them and ignore them. Though a few months ago it startled the trout out of me to suddenly see one the size of my fist scuttling across the floor out of nowhere! I engaged an epic battle with that smurfer and vacuumed it up. It was the principle of the thing.
GEEEEEEEEEEEETTTT VACUUMED!!!!!
I don't have a problem with the spiders here, but yeah I'd probably freak the smurf out if I encountered what they have in Australia.
I'm not cool with spiders but less cool with killing things.
I am terrified of them! I'm surprised that I haven't put a hole in something or burned the house down trying to take one on haha I don't even like getting near them.
I hate spiders. As a kid, I loved them. That adoration faded into a deep seated hatred.
There has been a resurgence in nature (in general) of late. I'm guessing that it's finally recovering from the med fly spraying many years ago. It was a rarity to spot a monarch, or see a moth bigger than a fingernail. Even June bugs, that would fill my parents pool by the thousands (my sister and I made a career of rescuing them), were down to a handful in my own pool. Now, butterflies everywhere, moths the size of humming birds (and bigger), praying mantises like crazy (I even spotted one hitching a ride on the back of a car). This "revival" also means More Freaking Spiders! I get a web to the face just about every day. I must look like a nut when I walk out front or down the side with a broom flailing in front of me... and I still get the webbing across my face. The sensation of it stuck in my facial hair drives me up the wall.
Anyways, two spider stories...
I mentioned my garden in the "Happy" thread. I planted tomatoes, cucumbers, squash, carrots, etc). However, my lab kept eating everything, so I put a fence around it. Now my squirrel buddy took dominion over it. Then, this weed/vine with little blue flowers took hold, so dense, the squirrels couldn't get in anymore. So, grass hoppers had their shot. There were hundreds of them, they were getting up to 6 inches long. I was taking them out with pruning shears. Totally devistated the garden, like locusts. Despite months of gardening with nothing to show for it, I hadn't given up (yet). I went in to tear out the vines. While on my hands and knees cleaning it out, I felt something fall on my shoulder (shirtless). I brushed at it, but just figured it was a leaf. My shoulder blew up, like someone had slapped a third of a grapefruit onto it. The strange thing, for the next couple nights I was having crazy anxiety attacks (which I never have). A very specific anxiety, I was "certain" that there was someone trying to kill us. I searched the house with a baseball bat, grabbed a large kitchen knife and checked the back yard. My wife thought I was losing my mind. I looked into it and found that a very unique symptom of a Black Widow bite is "an unusual fear of death". I never knew that before. Went to the Dr, but he said I was already passed the point of needing the injection that would have negated the venom.
I took my dog for a walk. When I got home I tossed my hat on the bar. Wife sent me out for something (probably Menchies), put my hat back on. In the car I feel "movement" in my hair. Didn't think much of, but swatted at the spot none the less. I felt it again, swatted, and pulled off my hat. It was dark, but there was enough light that when I glanced into my cap I thought I saw a leaf. I rationalized it by imagining it must be one of those leaves that curls in with a number of thorns at the tips. Now I felt what I would describe as a "hand grasping the top of my head" (*girly squeal* and flailing hands, jk). I quickly ran my hand through my hair, front to back, and "sweeper" towards the floor. I felt it as I "threw" it forward, but it didn't go to the floor, there was a "thud" on my seat. I reacted quickly because there was something alive and about the size of a mouse (too close to "the goods" for comfort. I grabbed my hat off of the passenger seat, smashed it down onto my own seat, and sweated forward. I heard something hit the floor and glanced down as I went under a street light to see a huge moist "smudged" streak across the leather. I pulled over because I didn't want it running up my leg. I saw it, a big gnarled up carcass. I then looked in my hat to double check the "leaf". It was a moth, wrapped in a dense webbing. During the walk with the dog I must have disturbed a web. When I tossed my hat on the bar the spider dragged it's meal inside to finish in peace. It was about the size of a small tarantula.
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