Oh, no shit! Damn.

Ya think?

Can't stand them...

I dunno...Tarantulas are kinda neat. Had 2 of 'em. What gets you is trying to find food for them in winter.

Aw crap, spiders? Ick! Hate them!

Is that a tarantula? Or just a big ugly wolf spider? That's probably in the corner of someone's shower ... ug.

Oh. Hell. Freakin'. NO!

I'd be doing one of two things, screaming like a little girl and running like a sonofab@$^h, or dropping dead of a major coronary on the spot. Or maybe both.

{shudder}

Walrilla

Wolf Spider. I stomped one on the front porch a few months back and was amazed when it seemed to disintegrate into dozens of tiny spiders. Babies riding on mama spider. Raid took care of them. Truly freaked out my wife. She HATES spiders.

I'd be breaking out the Browning 12 gauge autoloader.

The horror story is the damage that you, human beings, inflict on nature by the space you occupy. What's the matter with all of you, cruel, insensitive people? You haven't learned yet that you must protect other species? The planet also belongs to them. There were two of them in Noah's Ark. You look as ugly to them as they do to you, y'know.

Raid is going to be outlawed when you finally have proper leadership in your country. Some specific areas will be designated in your cities where tarantulas, spiders etc.etc. will multiply in peace, and be allowed to circulate wherever they choose.

Dearest Claudia,

I hope you are kidding. The Raid was self defense. The spiders, dozens of them, were on the front porch!

Years ago,a sweet little wolf spiders bit me without provocation (me sleeping) and I still carry a scar right on my belt line.

Spiders are welcome to be where I am not, but when we cross paths, spiders die.

Denny, yikes! I was bit by one of those monsters as a baby. Frakkin thing crawled into my diaper at the lake. Still have the dimple. Anyway, I saw one a bit bigger than that once in my kitchen. I was reaching for the coffee pot and it was right beside it. Seriously I don't remember leaving the room, but the next thing I know I was in the frontroom screaming at my love to kill the SOB!! He sprayed it with bugspray. It raised up and laughed at him, then ran into the sink. He killed it with hot water, then put it in a mason jar and took it to my mother. She was not pleased. That jar made it look so much bigger.

Denise: Excellent story!
Claudia: I generally will pick up the spiders in a Dixie cup and toss them outside where they can eat mosquitoes. Mostly they are wolf spiders in the house, and those don't bother me so much. The ones that creep me out, that I won't touch, are the northern widows in the garage. They are related to black widows - look just like them, with the hourglass on the abdomen and all, but are a dark glossy brown and slightly smaller. Same nesting habits and there are the telltale sticky webs and dead bugs where they set up shop. I am spider control at our house. The guys just can't stand them! I don't particularly like them either, but I'm not phobic about it. I got bit by an aggressive house spider once, and that messed me up for a day.

Now, our ten-year-old son saw that picture and he'll have nightmares for sure. I said it probably looks bigger than it actually was, and he commented that, yeah, he's heard that cameras do add ten pounds!

Ack foo, I hate 'em too. Once I was repotting a plant and a big black one jumped right out of the bag of soil at me. I swatted him back, my son and I captured the thing and put it in a jar. We caught some skeeters and put them in the jar just to watch the thing. He was quite large, compared to a MN spider. Thing had hair and it's rear end part moved independently from the torso type part. My son was in 7th grade then, he took the thing to science class the next day. He's still anti-spider, but watching the thing suck the life out of other bugs was sorta kinda fascinating. I'm okay with killing spiders, but just thinking of one of those ass antler earwig things-or a centipede-yeesh! I got the creepy crawlies right now! Claudia, I love your tres bon sarcasismes!

Dearest Brad -

A spider attack? In the night? You were not even armed, and awake. A very uneven battle. Poor you, show me the scar. Please?

LisaKay - As always ;-)

Dear friend PeggyU -

You say: "Ugly spiders. Don't weave your beautiful, intricate webs in my neat house. I won't kill you but out, out, go and gobble mosquitoes." It doesn't matter who eats whom. Adieu moustiques!

We're such miserable people. We don't even allow the poor mosquitoes to have one little, very tiny drop of our blood. We splatter ourselves with witches-lotions that repel them, or kill them on the spot if they dare taste us. Plus, no other human being is tempted to approach us with this goey stuff covering us! Without contacts, how will our own species survive?

Do we really want to survive surrounded by all those ugly little bugs that lead us daily to irrational murders? To be or not to be...Spider or me.

LOL, LisaKay! "Ass-antler earwig thing" ... those gross me out, even though I think they may be harmless. One time I went to put a little extra water in my steam iron so that I could press a shirt. I poured the water in the iron and out popped an earwig. The iron barely missed my foot when I dropped it!

My worst "bug" experience though was with a tomato worm. You know, those giant green and yellow caterpillars? I think they turn into moths when they get finished with your tomatoes. My husband and I had planted our first garden and finally had a nice bunch of tomato plants (this was when we lived in Idaho, not western Washington where tomatoes don't grow as well). We were waiting for the first ripe tomato, and I went out to check to see if we had one yet.

To my annoyance I discovered a big green caterpillar clinging to one of the tomato vines. It was about 5 inches long. I flicked it with my finger, but it was hanging on pretty tight and didn't move. So, I went to grab it and pull it off. The damned thing swung its front end around as if to nip me!

So, I stomped back to the house and grabbed a wad of paper towels, then went back to the garden and got ahold of it and pulled. It took some force to remove it, and the monster spewed a squirt of thick green juicy stuff up my arm. I popped in in the garbage can and had the satisfaction of watching the garbage truck drive off with it, as it happened to be trash day. Take that, worm!

Claudia: If there's one thing I can't stand, it's mosquitoes!!! Like my husband says to the mosquitoes, "Take all the blood you want - but why do you have to make me miserable in the process!?" And what I really hate is when you turn off the light and are drifting off to sleep, and you hear that high-pitched whine - then it takes you half the night, flipping the light switch on and off, to find it and swat it.

I agree about the bug spray ... oily, nasty stuff - repellant for sure, and it does work better on other people than on bugs.

BTW, you should see the picture of the snail we found on the patio. Maybe I should send it to Denny. You can actually see its pupils on its eyestalks. I had no idea they had eyes like that!

Only female mosquitoes suck blood. Hmmmmm!

Denny -

I'm killing myself laughing here. I actually googled mosquitoes, and you're absolutely right!!! Without knowing it, I was fighting for my own gender....One little suck of blood, and you make a female happy. Is that so much to give?

All your blood are belong to us!!! BWAHAHAHAHAH!!!!