Wednesday 19 September 2012

Snap!

The Weaver of Grass has just written wonderfully about her fear of spiders.  I can quite sympathise with her - around this time of year there seems to be a population explosion - or they all come into the house to keep warm over winter.  I am afraid I don't care for them either, and have to deal with them with the working end of the Dyson pipe especially when I am decorating - as I am in the kitchen at the moment.  I say sorry to them before they go to meet their maker but I am sure a Dyson-death is fairly instant and preferable to drowning in paint.

Anyway, there was a time when I wasn't too bothered about spiders.  I can remember my friend Tricia had one with yellow markings on its back which lived in her dad's toolshed and she had hysterics every time we had to go in there.   At that time, I was OK with spiders, as long as no-one required me to pick one up.

Anyway, this went on until we were having Sunday lunch one day.  Bear in mind this was the cusp of the 1950s into 1960, so there was linoleum on the floor and just a square of carpet in the centre.  We were all sat down to our roast, and I could hear a sort of scrabbling noise over the lino.  I said about it to Dad (mum was too deaf to hear it) but he didn't think anything of it.  Anyway, a few minutes later something tickled my neck and when I put my hand up to rub my neck, the biggest spider this side of the African jungle fell into my gravy.  I have never screamed so loudly before or since, and neither have I liked spiders.  Oooh, it gives me the heeby-jeebies just remembering it!

3 comments:

  1. I don't like any sort of spider in the house! I'm OK with the big black and yellow garden spiders who are content to spin their Z-marked webs outside this time of year.
    I surely don't have an experience that equals a spider in my gravy--although a Lady-Bug did land in my soup once.....

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  2. Your story is so creepy...
    I despise spiders and of course scorpions. If any critter gets in my home it's fate is death. We have wolf spiders and they are so creepy and dangerous, yuck !

    cheers, parsnip

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  3. I don't mind spiders as long as I can see them and know their every move. I hate it when I have to go under my trailer to shut the water off or find a leaky pipe, as I have some that live year round under there with, I am quite sure many generations of babies and aunties and uncles, etc.
    We have wolf spiders here also, but they are not poisonous but just huge. One time I was hiking around my parent's lake cabin through some cedar trees and didn't even think of anything falling or crawling on me. A few moments later, I felt something quite large crawling on my shoulders and took my hand and swooshed my hand on my shoulders and off fell the biggest wolf spider I had ever seen. She had been in the trees where I was walking through. I screamed a hidious scream, and instantly took off my tank top only to look up at a shocked fisherman, and my red face!
    I don't care for spiders much either.

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