Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Shower Spiders and Bare Arms


I took a shower at the cabin. It's a tiny little shower. Not that much room for anything but your feet. You could get four feet in there if their owners are friendly. It's entirely adequate, but it feels a little too small to share with a spider.

I don't have a fear of spiders. I know people who do, and they're really loud. I think spiders are cool, and if there's one in the house I usually ignore it, or if someone else in the house is struck down by the willies, I'll escort the spider outside and wish it the best of luck. But even though I don't have a particular scenario in mind involving a spider and myself in the shower that ends badly for me, I'm a little uncomfortable sharing the space. I probably share the space more often than I'm aware of. I'm really nearsighted and once I take my glasses off I can't tell if there's a spider in there with me. Unless it's one of those big black zippy ones with the thick ankles. I was squinting at a fuzzy dot with suspicion once I got in the shower and then it made a quick zag. I looked at it for a while. If it was planning to zag toward the ceiling, I was planning to let it. But instead it headed down. I lost track of it, because even though my feet aren't very far away from my eyes, they're far enough away so I can't make out the fuzzy dot. The trajectory looked bad, though. I crouched down to keep tabs. And at some point I just decided to
whoosh water at it until it went down the drain. It's not my first choice, but I don't beat myself up about it. There are religions where you are supposed to make an effort not to kill anything. I think that's fine as far as it goes but I already know I kill things inadvertently, tromping on this or that, and if a horsefly lands on my thigh I'm going to smack it straight to heaven, so I just do the best I can and not worry about it. I always tell myself the spider is going to shake itself off and climb back up the drain anyway. I don't know if that's true. All of which led me to think about guns, and their owners.

Because there is a thing that makes gun aficionados different from me, and it's not a thing I understand. I've got lots of friends who like guns, and I like those friends just fine. What I don't get is the passion with which they love guns. There's something about a gun that gives it power over its owner. And I'm not talking about "gun nuts." Regular people, people I like, get all possessive over guns, especially if they think that someone might try to take them away. The closest thing I can think of to compare it to is what happens in Middle Earth when someone gets hold of a ring. I have all kinds of possessions, more than I need for sure, and with the exception of Pootie--and I have more custody than possession of him--I don't have as much passion for any of them as gun owners have for their guns. Guns are preciousss.

It might sound as if I'm making judgments about gun owners, but I just want to understand the pull. I can only surmise. Having a gun and knowing how to use it must give the owner a feeling of power that I don't ever feel. I'd have nothing to compare it to. Beyond that, I suspect that gun owners have a much more developed sense of danger than I do. I imagine that most of them have played out scenes in their heads, not involving deer or ducks, in which a gun would come in handy. To the extent I've ever imagined such a scene, I've imagined ducking out the back door.

I can imagine being in a truly frightening world--a gang-ridden pocket of a city, a war zone--in which I might feel moved to have a gun to protect myself. I don't feel that way in Portland, Oregon in 2013. It's not to say that bad guys don't occasionally turn up and threaten people. But preparing for it, to me, would be like having plans for an underground bunker in case of asteroid strike. I give the threat almost no brain space at all.

I won't deny I might be deluding myself. Here's the thing. I could have a showerful of spiders at any time. But I can't see them. And that works for me. The spiders are out there, and one of them might feel threatened if I accidentally step on it in the shower and be moved to do something about it. But mostly, as long as I don't know about them, we'll all get along fine.

89 comments:

  1. Last year a spider shared the shower with me. It didn't end well for either of us - it bit me, and then dropped dead. And no, I stomp it, or drown it. When I succeeded in shaking it from my thumb it was dead. I am obviously more toxic than it was.
    Guns? No, I don't understand either. I believe if you have a gun in the house the most likely victim is a member of your family. By mistake I hasten to add.

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    1. It DROPPED DEAD? Whoa. Hats off. By the way, I seem to be incapable of stomping bugs. Barefoot, anyway.

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    2. I left a word out there. I DIDN'T stomp it. I escort bugs out (when dressed).

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    3. Oh man. It's so hard to get the pants on the little buggers.

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    4. Thanks Murr. Tea on the keyboard.

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  2. I AM afraid of spiders. It's only because I was certain that anything you wrote would be worth the effort that I made it past those two photos. That involved holding up a couple of pieces of paper and looking away while I scrolled. In fact, I'm more afraid of spiders than I am of the idea of some gun-wielding criminal attacking me or invading my home. This is not a popular opinion in my family. I'm related to people who make their own bullets. What I don't understand is the belief that they should not only be allowed to have a rifle (for hunting) and a handgun (for "protection"), but also an automatic weapon - because there are crazies out there. Um, looked in a mirror lately?

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    1. The two women I know who are most afraid of spiders are both exceptionally competent, bright, strong women, and they'll both scream like little girls. Lifts the hair right off your head.

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  3. if a horsefly lands on my thigh I'm going to smack it straight to heaven

    Flies go to Heaven? No wonder many of the more perceptive people aim for Hell.

    Guns are not just possessions; in this country, they define a culture and an identity. That's why the people whose culture and identity that is are so passionate about them.

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    1. I always charitably assume critters go to heaven. And now that you mention it, I probably don't have any possessions that define my culture or identity. I don't even have many books. I'm about as well-defined by Pootie as anything.

      Or, as Dave said when I read an article about hanging a basket of flowers on your front door because your front door tells people who you are, "why don't we just nail a beer can up there and call it a day?"

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  4. I like spiders, too, as long as they're not too big. I carry them outside if I can. But that one? Maybe not. What in the world is Pootie doing in that last picture? Oh, I get it: he's YOUR gun! :-)

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    1. He had to rest up after that photo shoot. He's all expended.

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  5. I had to squint to read this one. Pictures of spiders come in third on the terrifying meter. Second is videos of spiders, and first is real spiders in actual proximity. Fortunately, everyone else in my house is not a weenie like me.

    My friend told me he needed an assault weapon in case two guys with guns came into his house. I said I didn't know that he was moving to Juarez. Here in the suburbs it's pretty quiet. Even the suburbs of Detroit.

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    1. I am not sure I could live well carrying a hypothetical like that in my head.

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  6. My late husband (the merry prankster) and I were putting up insulation in the crawlspace of a rental property (forgive me if I've told this story already - my mind is unreliable about such things). Hubby said helpfully, "you've got a dead spider in your hair"....."oh wait, never mind it's alive". So of course I had to do the bug dance in the crawl space.

    I'm not afraid of spiders IF I SEE THEM FIRST. It's Surprise Spiders that creep me out. And as a former gun-owner I am more creeped out by some of the current lot of gun owners than I am of Surprise Spiders. Just sayin'.

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    1. Surprise snakes get me. And I like snakes. Once I stepped in a parking strip on my mail route and (apparently) right in the middle of a new snake hatch. The little guys squiggled out in every direction. I almost threw up.

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    2. Oh Jay-sus, I'd'a peed my pants and run screaming - a nest of them !~!

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    3. I think I might have shot my pee clear of my underpants.

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  7. Mosquito bites? No big deal. Spider bites? Yikes!!! They swell up. They hurt big time. Indoors, I keel you, spider. Outdoors, live and let live, but I sure do wear gardening gloves (after I've stomped on them before I put them on).
    And gun fanatics. I just don't get it. They are so paranoid and I don't understand why.

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    1. They do. They last for months, too. Just about every spider bite I've ever had was on my butt. I think I roll over on them in my sleep. This leads me to believe they're pretty easy to get along with, and slide out from under if they have a chance, but the butt really pins 'em.

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    2. Interesting. I was using the bushes, ahem, while doing geology work, and came out with twin fang marks on my butt - tiny fang marks.

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    3. "Using the bushes." Them bushes has been used.

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  8. Guns - what is it with guns? There is, of course, a certain psycho-sexual connection. I mean, it sticks out, and stuff comes out of it. Really powerful stuff. So if you have a gun, you are Really manly. And bigger guns that produce more powerful stuff even faster are even better! I know guys that own cannons. They fire them once or twice, then roll over and fall asleep. They stay relaxed for days afterwards, too.

    Women gun nuts - well, just because you weren't born with the plumbing, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy the notion of a hot shower.

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    1. Hearing Lennon's voice singing "happiness is a warm gun, yes it is"

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  9. :-) I think a lot of people have watched thousands of TV shows in which an intruder makes a lot of noise and is really incompetent about getting into the house, allowing the householder all the time in the world to wake up, find her gun, load it, and and set an ambush. They know these are fictions, but they can't help replaying them at two in the morning. I don't watch much TV, so I reckon intruders probably mostly come in two varieties: 1) so incompetent that they wake you up while they're outside and can't even *get* into the house, in which case you call the cops and make yourself a snack, or 2) professionals who wake you up by pressing the barrel of *their* gun against your temple, at which point the carefully locked up, unloaded gun you have in the closet is not really an item of great interest any more. But what do I know? I've spent my life in the high-crime districts of high-crime American inner cities, not in the suburbs. I guess y'all do things differently out there. That's what the TV says, anyway.

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    1. Back when there were taverns down the street and the drunks would roll out at 2pm and lurch noisily down our alley, I reacted as though they were planning to break in and jump on my bed. Dave pointed out how unlikely it was, but I was easily freaked out.

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  10. So interesting to get to know another arachnophile. I, too, hate to kill a spider. Also hate when one nips me, which I have had happen. But I think they are fascinating creatures!

    "Skoosh a spider, you gets rain." --from a Pogo strip long ago.

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    1. ACK! Yet another Pogo quote my dad said all the time when I was a kid, and had forgotten completely about! Thank you thank you thank you.

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  11. I am not afraid of spiders, either, although I do a good imitation of one who is when surprised by one.

    (That sentence was exhausting.)

    I also don't understand the gun thing -- but Roxie's comment has intrigued me. :-)

    Pearl

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    1. I'd really like to diagram that first sentence, but I don't have all day. And Roxie ain't right.

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    2. I'm not half a bubble off plumb. I'm just aligned to a different gravitational axis.

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  12. I think you have found the true source of my concern for these gun lovers ... it is the passion. As much passion to protect the ownership as most mothers feel about protecting their children. Scares me not just a little.

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    1. I might have to admit I am a woman of no passion.

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  13. The passion with which spider haters dislike spiders is akin to the passion with which gun lovers love their guns...
    With apologies, I just had to set down the premise in order to go on. Too long to repeat in my mind.
    I'm not fond of spiders, but live with people who are less fond. Driving at high speed on a Georgia interstate I looked over and saw a green spider crawling up my sister's leg. The driver who screams, hides her eyes, throws her hands in the air and commences stomping her feet at the sight of a spider. I calmly reached down, plucked it off, threw it out the window. What was that? she asked. Nothing, I replied.
    I, too assume spiders come back out of the drain to live again. Shooters know the bullet won't climb back out. But, I can't state a premise from those analogies...

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    1. Yeah, it's an imperfect analogy. I think what made me make that jump was more the fact that I'm really fine with real threats as long as I'm unaware of them, and that makes me different from gun owners, who have a more highly sensitive alarm system.

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  14. Spiders don't skeeve me out, except those big hairy guys that live in the jungle, but we don't have those here. Not unless they come in your grapes or your bananas from the grocery store. That HAS happened, more than once, in our town, although not to me.

    But earwigs make me shriek inside my head (I can't waste valuable attack time by shrieking out loud) and run for a tissue so I can dispatch 'em. Sorry, earwig. But I just don't know what you're good for, and your extended family members have bitten me once too many times ...

    I agree with your puzzlement on the protectiveness of gun owners. I also don't understand people who hunt, unless it's for food that one cannot afford otherwise. That, I get. But hunting for the antlers or the bragging rights? I can't wrap my head around it. And those gun owners are every bit as protective of their weapons as the ones who want to use them on human animals who enter their territory.

    Awesome photo. I have to wonder, though, what kind of pay is Pootie getting for his skills as a model (he's GOOD! - everything from the Pope to a pistol) and did he get danger pay for today's shot? I mean, really! He may have stuffing for brains but that doesn't mean you can take advantage of him!

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    1. I think hunting for food is sort of noble even if you can afford groceries, because it keeps you more in touch with what has to happen to get meat on your plate. But trophy hunting? Blech. Deal-breaker.

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  15. Still trying to figure out how you go from spiders to guns. I might have to read over again. It takes great skill or a weird mind to make that segue (Segway?) well you know what I mean.

    Anyway, I hate spiders and guns, though guns scare me more. I'm pretty sure I could never kill myself with a spider...a gun? Not so much, and if you step on a gun it could go off.

    I think gun owners need to relax, no one is going to take away your guns, unless you are using them to shoot spiders, then maybe you shouldn't be allowed to own one.

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    1. Everything reminds me of something else and sometimes it's a pretty tenuous thread. Like this time. I'm all about the segues but sometimes I don't even know where I'm going, and have to fight my way back.

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  16. I'm one of those who actually like spiders... the more colorful the better. (brown recluse are pretty boring)... so was fascinated by the tarantulas that roamed the night scene during our recent job. Now.... had I read your blog a couple of weeks ago, I could have done some target practice and blasted them with anything from a BB gun (do they still make those?) to a 357 magnum... but truth is I had more fun trying to get a good photo of them.

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    1. I like 'em too. Saw my first tarantula two years ago. What's not to love? My father made a point of taking spider pictures and dewy webs, so I got indoctrinated in their favor early.

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  17. I always escort spiders outside and I've always loved guns, but that probably has more to do with the fact that I grew up in the country so neither holds any terror for me. I've had a spider crawling across my tongue after I drank from a tap (that'll teach me to use a glass), and guns were a handy-dandy way to deal with rabid skunks without getting all close and personal.

    I'm fine with snakes and other critters. Ants are the only thing on my kill-on-sight list. They're just too... organized. Totally creeps me out.

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    1. Ha ha ha! Oh yah. You know when you start smooshing ants that it's already gotten back to the mothership and platoons have been activated.

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  18. I'm not afraid of spiders, although I don't much care for being startled by them. I once felt a tickle on my temple while mediating and brushed my face - only to knock to the ground an extremely large (but admittedly beautiful) marbled orb weaver. Once I stopped shaking, I captured it and re-located it outside, where it promptly spun a web.

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    1. I got that a lot in September, the time of year when letter carriers go through their appointed rounds swinging a rolled-up magazine in front of them. Good on you, by the way.

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  19. I was afraid of spiders as a child but as a mother I had to be a good example and got into the escorting outdoors habit. I must have missed one because I well remember the morning when I awoke with a trail of spider bites from my left shoulder, across both breasts and down my right arm to the wrist, where, fully sated, it had probably hopped off the bed. I made a major effort to find it (damn that friend who'd just told me some brown recluse spiders had been found in Portland) but never did. Thankfully the bites eventually faded.

    As for the guns and seemingly sensible people as gun aficionados - it's bizarre.

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    1. I swear you can still see a spider bite three months later. I once went to put on a sweatshirt I'd dumped on the floor when I was at the cabin and my friend--one of the really loud ones--screamed at me to shake it out before I put it on. I rolled my eyes but she grabbed the sweatshirt from me and turned it inside-out, and there was a dang SPIDER in there. Now she's ruined me for life. I'm sure it would have fallen out unnoticed if I'd just put the sweatshirt on, but now I have to turn things inside out.

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  20. Murr, I kind of like spiders. I don't have much fear of them, at any rate. I grew up playing in the same desert enclaves as about a million black widows, and we respected each other's spaces just fine. I guess it's got to be the same with a million gun owners. As long as they respect my space, I won't get too excited about their uber-excitement about guns and their over-the-top fear that the evil Obama Orks will take them away. It is all kind of precioussss, isn't it?

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    1. Oh, as if! He's not going to take away their guns. He's going to take away their pipelines...heh heh heh...hey, it looks like you've got a live one down there in Texas! Woo hoo!

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  21. I am only afraid of spiders with guns...

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  22. This one provokes me to comment. You got completely derailed there with the guns. It's the SPIDERS. Swear to all the gods, they only live to hide in the bedding and other crevices and bite! Big, welty, poisonous, seeping bites. Gives new meaning to the quote of the day, "Creepy ass cracker." Snakes, yes. Rats, fine. But I HATE SPIDERS, she squawked loudly. (So does Raymond Powers, nature buff extraordinaire. just sayin' )

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    1. Wait a minute. The quote of the day is "creepy ass cracker?" I need to get alerts on this.

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    2. When I discovered on yesterday's news cycle that "cracker" was a racial slur, I was surprised. I never knew that. Someone could have called me a cracker and it wouldn't have bothered me at all. Obviously words meant to be slurs need to be front-loaded with hate to be effective.

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    3. Yes. Creepy ass cracker. Do a search. ;-)

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    4. Okay. Okay! I get it now! It's "creepy-ass cracker," which makes sense. I was thinking "creepy ass-cracker" which is a whole other thing.

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  23. I feel the same way about spiders as Vicki, but I fear gun-lovers almost as much as I fear spiders.

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    1. I fear drowning. That's number one. And I hear it isn't so bad, but I still fear it.

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  24. I do not like spiders near me at all! I had a scary experience once white kitty sitting for Pat L. (you know her from Chrysalis) and a monster spider at least the size of a chihuahua (REALLY) walked up on to the wall. You can read about how I battled the beast here--
    http://poetrose24.blogspot.com/2012/08/eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek.html
    and also view photos of the creature. I usually begin throwing anything I have nearby at them!

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    1. It's got to be instinctual or something. Since my dad liked to photograph spiders, we had a lot of exposure, and anyone putting up a web or funnel on the porch was unmolested, in spite of my mother's wishes. But later I heard he developed his interest in spiders because he was so afraid of them when he was little, and decided that should not stand. Maybe you can do the same thing!

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  25. No fear of spiders, in spite of living with the deadly Funnel Web on my doorstep (and sometimes in my house.) But the fear of humans with guns, whether for imagined protection or for trophy hunting (and that I really, truly cannot understand) is very real for me. Australia has only a smidgeon of the population owning guns and I hope we stay that way.

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  26. Great Blog post in more than one way!

    "To the extent I've ever imagined such a scene, I've imagined ducking out the back door."

    I think this describes exactly the difference between people living in Europe and you US americans. It will be very crowded at our backdoors over here!

    And:

    "The closest thing I can think of to compare it to is what happens in Middle Earth when someone gets hold of a ring."

    I was remembered of a book I've read many years ago: "Men at Arms" written by Terry Pratchett.

    "As the story progresses, it is made clear that d'Eath has stolen the gonne, the Disc's first and only handheld firearm. He meant to use it to set the rightful king on the throne, but the device appears to have a strange mind of its own."

    In the end the firearm was destroyed as it was to dangerous to be kept
    by anyone.

    BTW - when did you cut your hair? I love that new look!


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    1. Let me add "ducking out the back door trailing panic diarrhea." Thanks! I got it cut pretty short in February and this short last week. I've got a girl who'll do it for eleven bucks so I think I'll keep it this way. The reason I used to have long hair is I'm cheap.

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  27. I must have missed a paragraph or two, I can't get the connection between spiders in the shower and guns. I smacked a huge black spider on the shower wall once, it was the middle of the night and the shower is right next to the toilet...anyway, I smacked and the spider suddenly became a million tiny weeny baby spiders scrambling all over the bathroom. I had to turn on the light and spray the whole room with bug killer.
    I don't understand gun passion either, but I suppose everyone needs a passion of some kind.

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    1. Yes! At least once a year, I smash one of those huge black spiders in the garage, and all the tiny babies spread out like a flowing pool. Obviously Mama carries them with her.

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    2. I hate skooshing bugs so I've never seen this phenomenon. Bug skoosh. Bleah.

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  28. Spiders?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

    And I'm much the same about guns, but speak from ignorance. I'm from the UK; we don't own guns.

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    1. Aw, y'all'd be too polite to use them anyway. Too noisy.

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  29. Ontario dock spiders are enormous, non-poisonous but incredibly intimidating. We had one in the tin shed at the end of the yard, in which we store off-season car tires. We left it alone but checked carefully when entering. Himself put four summer tires in the car, two in the backseat and drove them to the garage to have them put on. Apparently the dock spider was in a tire and crawled out when the mechanic went to put the tire on. "What are you feeding them things at your place?" (direct quote). He killed it with a tire iron. I felt kind of sad about it.

    I don't get the thing about guns either.

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    1. How many whacks with the tire iron did it take?

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  30. My attitude to those rather alarming giant spiders is - take no notice of it and it'll go away. I think spiders are a lot more scared of me than I am of them.

    And no, I can't for the life of me understand why people are so passionate and so fetishistic about gun ownership. Maybe if I was a born-and-bred American I might get it.

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    1. Well, some does and some don't, so you'd still have a chance to stay the same.

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  31. My spider story involves my swatting just one spider with a flipflop which resulted in maybe 100 or so baby spiders scurrying in every direction. Fortunately I was in the bathroom, 'case it scared the crap out of me.

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    1. That's three similar tales. I wasn't going to swat anyway and now I never will.

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  32. OK, I won't even get into the spider thing, because there's a dividing line for me. Below a certain size threshold they're CUTE, and I'll escort them out of the house. Bigger than that (lima bean size, more or less), I squish them as fast as I can because they creep me out (best case) or terrify me (worst case).

    No, my REAL comment is about the gun "thing." I grew up in the country, and my parents had a couple of guns in the house "for protection." Neither my dad nor my mom hunted, nor did they go target shooting, so I think it was the IDEA of protection they liked.

    However. One day when Mother was home, she looked out the back window and saw a hunter who was strolling across one of our fields, without permission and despite multiple "no trespassing" signs posted everywhere. So my mother got out her little, German pistol, loaded it, and ran out of the house toward the hunter, shooting in the air and shouting, "GET OUT!!!" He took one look at the crazy lady and skeddadled, which was nice, but my mother said the best part of the whole episode was the complete EXHILARATION she felt for hours afterward. She said it was a euphoria she'd never felt before or since.

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    1. Oh I love stories like that. We weren't a gun family but when my sister moved to Maine and the raccoons got into her corn the very day it was ripe THREE YEARS IN A ROW, and she'd done every woo-woo thing the Mother Earth News recommended, she borried a rifle and blammed it right out the back window.

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  33. I don't know about horse flys in heaven...but Mark Twain, in Letters From the Earth, said that man was God's favorite creature, after the house fly.
    In Fairbanks, Alaska my wife was bitten on the arm by a spider - the next morning I had to rush her to the hospital. Spiders outside: fine. Spiders inside: dead spider.
    the Ol'Buzzard

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    1. I do know someone who almost lost his hand to a spider bite. They's pow'ful, sometime.

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  34. I've been in the shower twice with little tree frogs, once in our tiny cubicle shower in Mexico and once at a campground shower in Texas. (Hey Texas!!) In the first case I was alerted to something askew when a dark blob began bouncing around at my feet. (I can relate to your eyesight issues.) The second time I noticed a very fuzzy yellow green blob above me on the wall. I left the guy on the wall alone and stared at him later with a boy howdy in his direction once I was finished and had my glasses on. The bouncing spot caused me to exit said shower and put on said glasses. Once ascertained it was a froggie I caught him and put him out the window.

    People with their guns are another matter. They would claim less vociferously about their ability to protect themselves with a gun in the face of violence if it ever actually happened to them. It did happen to me one rainy, very early morning on my way to work on the west side of Chicago. Four AM and I was listening peaceably to classical radio, waiting at a stop light, the second car back, when I was awakened out of my reverie from what sounded like a gun blast next to my car. Given where I was and the early hour, I assumed I was in the middle of a gang shoot-out. I turned to my right in the direction of the noise and came face to face with a young man with his head and torso through my passenger window. 12" pipe in his hand. I could have reached out and touched him. A scream came out of me that I was unaware I was making until I stopped. Meantime, he reached down and lifted my purse from the passenger seat beside me and fled into the early morning gloom. Of course I couldn't have shot him, had I had a gun. I was too busy being terrified. And he already had a weapon, which he thankfully chose not to use on me.

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    1. Well, that was certainly terrifying. I'm going to scrub that image out of my brain by thinking about your shower frogs. I would so love shower frogs. I'd even take cool showers if I had shower frogs.

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  35. It could be worse. You could have encountered a spider with a tiny little gun in the shower!

    I kill spiders that I find in my home not out of sadism, but necessity. I've been bitten multiple times by running spiders, and they leave enormous welts that take weeks to heal. NO FUN.

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    1. Oh, and did I mention that I've named several spiders who have crossed my path? There's Pervy Spider, who bit me in some unmentionable places last summer while I slept. There's Stowaway Spider, who ran across the dashboard of my car at top speed while I was driving. Finally, there's the Mads Mikkelsen spider, One-Fang (named after One-Eye from "Valhalla Rising"), named because it only left one little fang puncture instead of the normal two when it bit me in my sleep.

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    2. Oo, bit you right in your sleep! That's the worst place.

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  36. Just a thought...
    Maybe you think all gun owners are passionate about their guns simply because the rest of us who aren't as outspoken aren't noticed?
    Also, I would so much rather eat an animal that led a healthy and natural life and met a quick and humane end, than a conventional slab of meat from a store.
    Murr, when we spent the afternoon together, did I go on about my precious gun? Did I take it out and stroke it? Did it at all impact our book store visit? Did people at the cooking store think "eek, a gun nut!"? Did you even know I was carrying?
    Not all gun owners are nuts! Those are just the ones you see and hear. I wasn't going to comment on this at all, actually, because now I'm a gun nut in some folks' eyes, I bet. But if I remained silent, then nobody would think a little bit more about their misperceptions of gun owners.

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    1. You are absolutely correct. I only notice the ones who make a big stink about things. There's a corollary there about men dressed as women who still totally look like men. Except when they don't...and I don't notice.

      Okay, that's a flimsy corollary.

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  37. Oh, and spiders are delicately removed by hand from my house. Am I redeemed?

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