Relate your best spider stories here!

[Tom Kitten]

Okay here's mine...In my old house we had work benches on each side of our garage and stored firewood under each of them. When it came time to move, I got down on all fours and crawled under the bench to push the wood out so my roommate could gather it up out in the open(we were both moving to non-fireplace places so we decided to give it to our neighbors). I stood up, brushed myself off, and noticed a ery large black widow on my shoulder, making a fast track towards my bare neck about three inches away...Upon discovering this little situation I yelled out "AAAAAUGH!" and people noticed me doing a little dance. I managed to brush it off onto the floor...The red spot was clearly visible on the poor soon to be dead black widow and my animal rights roommate said "no don't kill it!" just before before I stomped it into spider heaven... My roommate said I shouldn't have done that but when he pulled out the firewood from under the other bench another black widow jumped out and he had no problem stomping on it...

I understand the niche spiders occupy ecologically, but I draw the line where black widows are threatening to possibly bite me on the neck...

[Betty88]

1. Spiders....

Ok so a little back story. First you have to understand that as a small child I lived for a few years in Ireland with my grandparents and an uncle (the youngest of my moms siblings.) My uncle, who I love dearly, thought it would be funny to chase me with live spiders and frogs, every once in a while he would drop one on my dinner plate. Oh yeah good times. As a result some 40 years later I have a completely irrational fear of all bugs. My frog fear has yet to be tested as I live in Brooklyn, an area not known as a hot bed for frog activity.

So anyway about 5 years ago my grandmother passed away. I traveled to Ireland with my mom. My job, drive the car and take care of mom. We were staying in my grandmothers cottage. Think of all those pictures you have seen of the little cottage in the Irish hills, that's grandma's place. There were always spiders in the house, but when someone was living in it they were kept under control. Grandma had been in the hospital for a few months so no one was around to keep them out and since it had been getting colder I guess they were all looking for a nice place to live out the winter.

We arrived just in time to drop off our bags and get to the funeral home. The next two days a blur of activity, I think I managed to sleep an hour or two here and there. We did not spend much time in the cottage and the few spiders I did see I managed to blank out, "be strong, its harmless, your bigger etc." this was my silent prayer to myself and any god that would listen.

Well on the third night, after having put grandma to rest, we went home started a fire, made some tea and just sat down. It was over and I could finally start to feel something. As we chatted in the kitchen I noticed a nice large spider on the wall. I had a tiny fit and asked uncle Jimmy to take it away. Uncle Jimmy is a good man, not the chaser. He took it into the bathroom to flush it and thinking it would be funny said it was to big to go down the toilet. As he is laughing, mom is giggling at my discomfort, another spider runs across the floor.

Ok so now we have a problem. I jump up on my chair in an age old girl like attempt to protect myself. I make the mistake of turning my head and look out the door that leads to the living room. A *&^%ing horde of spiders is running about the room like they own the place. All harmless garden spiders but these guys have very long legs and they stand 2 or 3 inches high. At this point I loose my mind. My mother and uncle are ROTFLTAO. I run, grab my shoes and bag and make for the door. My mom, through her tears of laughter says "where do you think you are going?"

Me.. "Aunt Alison's house. If she will not take me in I have a credit card and there is a hotel in the village." I ran to the car, fighting the feeling of a thousand little legs crawling on my skin, and hoping that a spider will not pick this very minuet to appear on the windshield of the car as I'm sure I will end up in the ditch.

I make it down to my aunts house in record time. She has a smile on her face and a glass of whiskey in her hand. My uncle, the evil one, is in tears having just gotten off the phone with my mother. "It's your fault I left my mother to die in that house full of spiders, you bastard" I told him with as much bravado as a woman who just ran from a bug could muster, then I had another drink.

[BlueJazz]

2. I was Coming home one afternoon during rush Hour.

Traffic was horrendous...moving along the freeway at 65-75 MPH.
I'm in the middle lane with cars all around me doing about 70 mph.
I noticed something over my head...by the visor.
It's a huge Spider with fat legs.
The fucking thing falls right down in my Lap and starts crawling up my shirt....Jesus Christ !!
I'm stuck with these crazies driving like idiots all around me...I can't go anywhere..
..and I have this God-damn spider about to crawl in my face.
About a mile later I finally am able to pull off on the shoulder...all the time screaming like
a Nut in an Insane Asylum.

I stopped and jumped out of the car...Flicked the spider off my shirt and calmed down.

Geez...what an Experience.

[RoyGBiv]

3. My Favorite Spider Story

Well, sorta, since the creature involve is not an actual spider ...

At my ten-year class reunion, one of my friends brought her husband, whom she'd met while teaching in Alaska.

He was a very nice guy who had spent his entire life up to that point there. As the reunion took place in Oklahoma in July, he was having a bit of trouble with the heat and humidity, but he was handling it okay.

During the party that evening at my house, I was in my kitchen/dining room with several people, including my friend with the Alaskan husband who had gone missing at some point, and suddenly we all heard a terrifying scream.

Two seconds later, my friend's husband came barreling through the area, his long, blond hair streaked out behind him, a look of sheer terror on his face. Between entering the room and exiting the other end on the way to the front door, he was able to exclaim, "There's a fucking monster in your bathroom!"

Swear to god, my first comment was, "So, who brought the LSD, and why didn't I get any?"

Several of us then wandered into the bathroom to find out what he was freaking about, and there, in the corner behind the toilet, was a Daddy Long Legs, innocently sitting there, waiting for a little meal.

The rest of the evening was quite enjoyable at our Alaskan guest's expense. He'd never seen one before. "I didn't know spiders got that big!" he said at one point.

As an aside, I find it sad that we feel the need to justify self-preservation. Black widows can and will kill you. I'll never apologize for having the wherewithal to be able to kill them back.

[DarkTirade]

4. There was this little niche at my middle school

where my friends and I would sit every morning and wait for class to start. There was a little knee-high wall that ran along and we sat in the back corner where it actually went past the full sized wall and then doubled back, so we had a little somewhat out of sight corner to sit in where we wouldn't be bothered.

Anyhow, every time something interesting happened there it always happened on a day when EVERY SINGLE ONE of my friends' buses were late. So I was always the only one to see it. One time I walked up and found a poor little bat, couldn't find his way home so he was clinging to the bricks and sleeping. He was so cute, like a little mouse with wings. :) And of course, none of my friends were there on time. And by the time we left to head back to our buses, the bat had gone.

Then there was the other time. I was sitting there, waiting for my friends to show up. Their buses were all late. So there I sat. And waited. And waited. And got very bored, and started looking around. I noticed a small spiderweb in the corner, only a few inches away from my leg. I wasn't comfortable having it near me, so I grabbed a stick and squished it. Then I looked at it.

... yep. Black widow. I'd been sitting next to it for 5-10 minutes.

Then there was the time we found one on our porch. We had a set of those plastic porch chairs, and when my little sister was born we thought it would be cute to have a miniature one. So we found a tiny little one that was bright red. Then one day, while cleaning the porch, my dad picked up the chairs and was going to move them outside so we could hose them off. When he picked up my baby sister's bright red little chair, what should fall out right towards his face... but a nice little black widow spider!

And there was much squishing and cursing.

[mnhtnbb]

5. I was in high school (late 60's) and had been to dinner with my parents

at a friend's house. I drove home separately; they were coming later. I came in the house through
the laundry room and thought I saw something moving by the dog's dish. I turned on the lights,
and there was a big, black, hairy tarantula!



AAAGHGHGHGHG!!!

Well, the damn thing was way too big to squish with a broom--ewww--so I decided I would catch
it in a coffee can. I got an empty one--put it down over the tarantula--and then managed
to slide newspaper under it. Flipped the can over and put on the top. I went looking through
all the cupboards for poison. Sprayed cotton balls with God knows what-all and carefully opened
the lid just enough to toss the poison loaded cotton inside. Then I wrote a note to my parents,
put the note and the coffee can on the kitchen counter and went to bed.

About an hour later I was awakened by a blood curdling scream from my mother! God, was that fun.

:rofl:


It was only years later that I found out that tarantulas jump. If that one had jumped when I was
putting the coffee can over it, I think the whole county would have heard me screaming.


On edit: The house was in Southern California on 30-some acres that were planted with oranges/lemons.