It’s definitely spider season! 

Now, my philosophy on spiders is to leave them alone if I find them outside (that’s their territory after all) and to smoosh them mercilessly if I find them in my house (that’s MY terrritory & they don’t belong!) 

Last week we had a GIANT spider crawling across our livingroom floor…towards me! Ack!  My daughters and I were watching a movie when my eldest suddenly shreeked, jumped up, grabbed a glass that was on the coffee table and trapped the thing inside.  I couldn’t really see it very well because it blended in with our carpet. (Happy thought if there are more of them lurking around!)  We slipped a thick white paper timidly under the glass so that we could carry it elsewhere and this highlighted it.  IT WAS HUGE!!!!  I’m talking approx 3inches across with legs!  UGH!  I had an uncontrollable shudder as I looked at the thing backing up and hunching it’s back at us. I’m sure it was hissing! (if spiders do 🙂  )  

We carefully carried the glass with our beasty outside to my husband.  He suggested we get a baggie and some cotton soaked in alcohol to gas it, so that we could take it intact to the health dept to have it identified.  We got him the only size we had in the house, a sandwich baggie…Ziploc, of course!  As we positioned ourselves to maneuver it inside, he paused and said, “Do we have any bigger baggies?”  We all laughed, because he had been so seemingly calm, but betrayed himself at that moment…how cute! 

Well, we still bravely continued…my daughter holding the glass, my husband holding the baggie, and me standing there shuddering  🙂 .  We almost got it in when the thing fought it’s way back out of the bag and we freaked and it landed on the ground where my husband, out of concern for all mankind, promptly smeared it as hard as he could.  My hero!

We’re pretty sure this was a hobo spider…yes, they’re poisonous!  If you click on the link, be sure to brace yourselves first…it’s nasty!

So, since then, needless to say, we’ve been shaking our shoes, plugging up the holes under the screen doors, and looking in every corner.  Last night, while my husband and I were watching Disturbia…an extremely tense remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Rear Window”, we heard a shreek coming from the bathroom, and then our spider trapping eldest running into the kitchen to get another glass for the hunt.  She succeeded, but this time it wasn’t nearly so big (about as big as a quarter) and we’re not positive that it’s the same kind of spider as the first.  We did gas it, though, so that we could get a close look at it.  We’ll see.

A note on the movie…it was good, extremely tense in parts ( I thought my heart was going to beat it’s way right out of my chest a couple of times), but all in all, I don’t think it was as good as the first.  After all, even though Shia LaBeouf is a very talented up-and- coming actor…. who can beat Alfred Hitchcock & Jimmy Stewart?  

Bethany~