Never mess with spiders...

[Mahone]

I've regularly tried to explain to my mother that spiders cannot morph through closed windows and so therefore the spider the size of a fingernail I just put outside of her window no longer has the ability to crawl down her throat at night., even if it wanted to... the logical never seems to sink in though. However, l can completely understand why she will no longer sleep in the same house unless I go down the back of the garden and kill it with a spade if in her mind she imagines this...

Can do this... (follow link)

This is why you shouldn't mess with spiders - Sharenator.org Original

[Jamie123]

I can't stand spiders, but I don't like killing them either. This is because:

1. They don't exactly do any harm. (Well, not the small house ones anyhow. I guess there are tarantulas and black widows, but in this country you'll only find them in the zoo.)

2. Because Charlotte saved Wilbur from being made into bacon.

3. As James Henry Trotter said:

And here we have Miss Spider

With a mile of thread inside her

Who has personally requested me to say

That she's NEVER met Miss Muffet

On her charming little tuffet-

If she had she'd NOT have frightened her away.

Should her looks sometimes alarm you

Then I don't think it would harm you

To repeat at least a hundred times a day:

"I must NEVER kill a spider

I must only help and guide her

And invite her in the nursery to play.

Edited May 26, 2009 by Jamie123

[Elphaba]

My daughter is literally terrified of spiders. When she was a child she was afraid of them, but then when she was 15 a black widow spider bit her, and it was a horrific experience for her.

In fact, we had made plans for her to spend the night with me last night. She asked me if I had seen any spiders and I assured her I had not seen one. So, of course, she came over and three of them were playing spider-tag on the ceililng. She couldn't stay, and I didn't blame her, because I know how frightening it is to her.

In fact, she once had me come to her apartment one night to kill a spider, and I did it lovingly, as I know her terror is real.

Me, meh. They never scare me.

But turn that spider into a snake, and I'd be just like your mother.

I have a visceral fear of snakes. Even writing the word gives me the heebie geebies. If there were a snake on the other side of the glass, it might be impossible for it to get into the house, but I would be terrified it would find a way nevertheless.

I'd need to take 238 valiums to calm down, and even then, I'd be paralyzed with fear. My skin is crawling right now just writing about it.

So I guess I sympathize with your mother.

[Churchmouse]

My daughter is literally terrified of spiders. When she was a child she was afraid of them, but then when she was 15 a black widow spider bit her, and it was a horrific experience for her.

In fact, we had made plans for her to spend the night with me last night. She asked me if I had seen any spiders and I assured her I had not seen one. So, of course, she came over and three of them were playing spider-tag on the ceililng. She couldn't stay, and I didn't blame her, because I know how frightening it is to her.

In fact, she once had me come to her apartment one night to kill a spider, and I did it lovingly, as I know her terror is real.

Me, meh. They never scare me.

But turn that spider into a snake, and I'd be just like your mother.

I have a visceral fear of snakes. Even writing the word gives me the heebie geebies. If there were a snake on the other side of the glass, it might be impossible for it to get into the house, but I would be terrified it would find a way nevertheless.

I'd need to take 238 valiums to calm down, and even then, I'd be paralyzed with fear. My skin is crawling right now just writing about it.

So I guess I sympathize with your mother.

Well then, you should have been at our house Friday night. It was just getting dark and I was stacking wood. I picked up two pieces and there was a six foot long Blacksnake grinning at me. Haven't touched the woodpile since. It can stay in a pile until we burn it next winter. I reached the conclusion stacking is a waste of energy. Especially when there's a snake in the pile.

[pam]

Having been bitten by a brown recluse (I still have the scar after 2 years) I can totally understand the fear of them. I never did find it..just woke up one morning with the bite. But I had a hard time sleeping in the same room for about a week. My bedroom had never been cleaned as thoroughly as it was that week.

[Hemidakota]

I've regularly tried to explain to my mother that spiders cannot morph through closed windows and so therefore the spider the size of a fingernail I just put outside of her window no longer has the ability to crawl down her throat at night., even if it wanted to... the logical never seems to sink in though. However, l can completely understand why she will no longer sleep in the same house unless I go down the back of the garden and kill it with a spade if in her mind she imagines this...

Can do this... (follow link)

This is why you shouldn't mess with spiders - Sharenator.org Original

When we truly understand the Progression Principle, it will be then we would not venture to destroy any form of life.

[Guest Alana]

I have 5 spider bites right now. If the spider is by my bed I might kill it if the alternative is it getting away from me (These bites hurt!) but about 95% of the time I'm able to just take them outside.

Spiders don't really bother me, unless there is one on me, then I'll do a very ungraceful 'get it off me!' dance:P

[Wingnut]

If there is a creature to this effect inside my house, I will kill it I will have my husband kill it. If it's outside, it's not in my territory, and I leave it alone. Unless it's a house centipede, because I do not want any more of those things in my house than already show up this time of year when it's humid.

(By the way, I think strikethrough should be enabled in this forum. :) )

[pam]

I have 5 spider bites right now. If the spider is by my bed I might kill it if the alternative is it getting away from me (These bites hurt!) but about 95% of the time I'm able to just take them outside.

Spiders don't really bother me, unless there is one on me, then I'll do a very ungraceful 'get it off me!' dance:P

You should videotape the next "dance" and post it on You Tube. I'd bet you'd be a smashing hit. Or would the spider be the smashing hit as it was being smashed?

[MsMagnolia]

poor poor spiders... while I do a "spider dance" when i am confronted with one on my person. I Greatly appreciate spiders for their ability to cut down on the enormous insect population where i live. GO SPIDERS!!! kill those bugs!!!!

[havejoy]

I don't like anything with the wrong number of legs. Snakes = bad and spiders = bad.

[Mahone]

When we truly understand the Progression Principle, it will be then we would not venture to destroy any form of life.

For clarification, I don't kill spiders. Whenever I hear the scream either from the other room or over the phone etc I usually put it out of the window or take it outside and put it in the garden somewhere. However my mum would like me to take it outside and kill it and I just don't mention to her that it is in fact still alive. If I did, quite frankly she'd leave the house for the night.

And that's just the reaction to spiders... our neighbours had a rats nest in their garden some years ago when I was about 16, which they got sorted quite quickly thankfully, however before they did I had an incident with one of them. As I took the rubbish out of a bin in our garden a rat ran up my arm and into the house. I was reluctant to tell her at first, hoping to get it out before she ever knew about it, but she heard it. I've never seen her so hysterical in my life before, it was actually scary. She was literally sitting at the top of the stairs with her head in her hands shaking and rocking back and forth.

Yet as far as I know she has not had any experiences which would explain her extreme fear of them. I did learn something that night though... never corner a rat. Thankfully I've not seen one again.

Edited May 26, 2009 by Mahone

[ploomf]

Gaahhhh I hate spiders. Spiders and moths, there’s just something about them that creeps me out as nothing can. My brother and I have a deal though, whenever he hears an earsplitting screech he comes in and deals with the spider and then pries me off of whatever piece of furniture I've climbed. I truly don't care if he kills them or takes them outside as long as the spider is out of my house!

Moths freak me out too. I know they are harmless, I really do but they really really freak me out. I swear I had a moth in my house last year who’s sole purpose in life was to torment me when I was trying to sleep. I’ll never forget the look on my mothers face when she walked in on me jumping on my bed at 3 in the morning trying to hit the stupid thing with the fly swatter and yelling at my cat “well why don’t you make yourself useful and eat the stupid thing!!!” He came out every night when I went to bed and bugged me and he KNEW what he was doing. What me paranoid? OK maybe just a little.

[DigitalShadow]

When we truly understand the Progression Principle, it will be then we would not venture to destroy any form of life.

I take it you don't use antibacterial soap then?

[the Ogre]

I love spiders, especially the crunchy sound they make when I kill them.

[pam]

So in honor of this thread:

[chiccam]

This thread is super great. Maybe it’s just late and I’m bored but it is interesting.

Ploomf-I’m so happy to hear that you have a moth phobia. I thought I was the only one. Mine is of course deep rooted from childhood. On the way home from swimming my sisters (fully knowing my fear of moth’s) caught a moth and put it in my swimsuit. It was fluttering and squishing tight against my skin. I freaked. I think the driver had to pull over. I finally got it out. Poor little thing was missing a wing and I had powder all of me. What the crap is up with the powder anyways.

I have to say usually I have someone else kill or remove the spiders from my path; yesterday I killed my own spider (it was a jumper). Another first on my list since my husband isn’t home.

[pam]

chiccam I'm sorry to laugh at your poor predicament with the moth..but it was funny.

[chiccam]

That's ok Pam...I can laugh now too.

[Dravin]

Me, I don't mind spiders. In fact when I run into people who do I like to tell them were I used to Moose Hunt up in Alaska, some swampy area off the Tanana we called Spider Swamp. When we went it was the right time of year for a lot of them to be parachuting (letting out enough silk for the wind to carry them away) and there was a lot of them besides that sitting on the tops of the grass. Well, we'd come along in an airboat and the bow of the boat would either cut off the tips of the grass or snap them around, the end result was that you sat there as the boat was going along and you could feel them being flung into you. Neat experience, also fun when the boat finally stopped and a ton of them seemed to evacuate en mass and skitter on up over the sides and even then if you looked you could probably find a spider hiding somewhere on the boat if you took the effort.

Good times, I've got great memories of that place.

[Bluejay]

I love spiders. In fact, I am studying spiders for my PhD dissertation.

I like scorpions and centipedes, too. And mantids and dragonflies, and pretty much any other kind of bug. You see, I'm an entomologist.

Generally speaking, spiders are completely harmless to humans. Even black widows and brown recluses don't usually do much damage when they bite (often, their bites will look just like any of those tiny little bites you'd get from a house spider). It's just that the rare, horrific occurrences get lots of media attention (like plane crashes). Furthermore, most of the time, doctors don't know how to identify brown recluses and black widows (let alone their bites), so, more often than not, if you were diagnosed with a brown recluse bite, you were misdiagnosed.

Here (Brown Recluse Spider) is a webpage that shows a map of the distribution of the brown recluse. It has never been reported in Utah, nor really anywhere near it.

You people in Utah should be more worried about red harvester ants: their stings hurt like you wouldn't believe!

Edited May 28, 2009 by Bluejay
HTML codes are off, so I adjusted my link to look less stupid

[havejoy]

I love spiders. In fact, I am studying spiders for my PhD dissertation.

I like scorpions and centipedes, too.

It's okay, there's probably something terribly wrong with most of us.

[ploomf]

This thread is super great. Maybe it’s just late and I’m bored but it is interesting.

Ploomf-I’m so happy to hear that you have a moth phobia. I thought I was the only one. Mine is of course deep rooted from childhood. On the way home from swimming my sisters (fully knowing my fear of moth’s) caught a moth and put it in my swimsuit. It was fluttering and squishing tight against my skin. I freaked. I think the driver had to pull over. I finally got it out. Poor little thing was missing a wing and I had powder all of me. What the crap is up with the powder anyways.

I have to say usually I have someone else kill or remove the spiders from my path; yesterday I killed my own spider (it was a jumper). Another first on my list since my husband isn’t home.

I'm so glad to hear I'm not alone!!! Everyone else I know tells me to stop being silly, that moths are harmless. I swear though that the moths of this world are out to get me. We had a hummingbird moth hanging around our back porch last year. Those things are BIG. First time I saw him was at night and he was ramming himself at the glass on our backdoor trying to get in. I heard the noise and pressed my face up against the glass to see what it was and all of a sudden he rammed himself right up where my face was and sat there looking me. I nearly had a heart attack right there and then, I must admit my first thought was "mutant moth is here to get me!!!" I was very twitchy whenever I went into my backyard for months after that.

[pam]

I have to laugh at some of these stories...mainly because they are hitting home so well. Thanks for the laughs.

PS:oooooooohhhh I just noticed something. This is my 14,000th post. Wahooooooo

[the Ogre]

I love spiders. In fact, I am studying spiders for my PhD dissertation.

I love spiders too. They are one of the best reasons for playing World of Warcraft: killing!

I make sound effects when I'm hacking away at one: crunch, crunch, stomp, stomp, hack, hack.