Mrs. Smits was new to the Phoenix area. She fell in love with the Superstition mountains, the desert sand, the humidity free climate, and most of all, the cactus. Cacti lined the roadways, like bystanders in a parade, with outstretched limbs, welcoming her home. In fact, she wanted to have one of her very own. To celebrate the move, she decorated her new adobe style home in the latest Southwest decor. She borrowed a truck from her neighbor, so that she could bring her new potted cactus home from the nursery. It stood 4 feet tall, and was quite difficult to maneuver out of the bed of the truck into the house. She laughed softly as her hair kept getting tangled in the thorns. She pulled, pushed, and finally finagled it into a place of honor in her entry way. She stood back to admire her cactus. Beautiful.
Days went by, and every time her gaze fell on the cactus, she smiled. But one day, she thought she saw the cactus move. Shake a little. She blinked a few times. Must have been her imagination. The next night, she noticed it again. But the large plant didn’t stop vibrating. The nursery where she bought the cactus was closed. And since it was late, she knew of no one to call. Except the local police station. She began with trepidation, “Um, I’m sorry to bother you, but I didn’t know who else to call. I have a 4 foot cactus that started vibrating, and frankly, it has scared me to death!” With no hesitation, the voice on the other end of the phone said with urgency, “Ma’am, get a large trash bag, as big as you can find, and place it over the cactus. Then gently push it outside your front door. Go back inside and shut your door. Place a towel at the base of your door. And we’ll be right there.” What the? Immediately, she did as she was told. When the police car arrived, she opened her door. He explained. “Ma’am, we’re glad you called. Tarantulas are known to lay their eggs in cactus like these. This vibration means that the cactus is ready to literally explode and hundreds of hand sized tarantulas would be sharing your residence with you.”
She never bought another cactus.
Or so the story goes. This is an alleged urban myth. But I choose to believe it.
I’m terrified of spiders. The other morning, I was enjoying a few moments alone. I thought I’d take a nice hot bath. I climbed into the tub, and noticed when I looked into the vanity mirror, that something was on the ceiling. Above me. In the corner. Watching me. A spider. From my vantage point, I could watch the spider in the mirror, while I decided to cut my bath short. I looked away for just a second. And when I looked back into the mirror, the spider was gone. I leaped out of the bathtub, risking life, limb, and femur bone. My eyes searched frantically upwards. Where did it go? It was the size of a quarter or so, and just looked lethal. It scurried across the ceiling and down into the shower stall. I knew that there was no way I would ever shower again unless I knew for certain the spider was dead. He hid behind the conditioner. Gingerly, I lifted the shower nozzle from it’s resting place, turned the water on “incinerate” and blasted the shampoo, conditioner, and soap bottles. No spider fell out. I spent about $7.50 in water, but still couldn’t find the remnants of any spider. The shower stall looked as though someone had waged a war inside. And that’s exactly what it was. Combat. I left the shower nozzle dangling, and left the bathroom. I was prepared to never go back. I could just move into the children’s bathroom. So, there would be boogers on the mirror. And no one ever flushes. Or changes the toilet roll. But that’s better than spider.
Later that day, Fiddledaddy said that he found a dead spider on the floor of the shower stall. I won the war after all. Or did I?
Tonight as I was trudging down the hall to turn off the girls’ music, I stopped dead in my tracks. A spider. On the floor just outside my children’s’ bedrooms. It looked just like the spider I had murdered last week. Or was it one in the same? Did Fiddledaddy really find a dead spider at the bottom of the shower? Or was this the mate, come back to exact revenge?
Without taking my eyes of the offending arachnid, I began snapping my fingers wildly. This is code in my house for COME QUICK, BUT DON’T SAY A WORD. Fiddledaddy arrived, assessed the situation, procured a paper towel, and killed the spider. Wordlessly.
Had I been alone in the house, I might have been tempted to use a gun. Just to serve as a warning to other spiders not to mess with me. Fortunately I wasn’t alone. Or in possession of a firearm.
One time, when I lived alone, I killed a rather large cockroach inside my pantry door. And left it’s remains on the door jamb, to show other cockroaches what would happen to them if they showed their antennas.
Oh yes I did.
And Fiddledaddy was witness to this. After the roach had been there about a month. And he married me anyway.
This is a short story made dreadfully long to underscore the absurdity of the fact that I’ve chosen a study of Insects for our first unit study next week.
I may need a sedative.
It has come to my attention that many of you are creeped out by the spider.
I’m a bad, bad girl.
{ 33 comments }
um, yep, can totally relate to that. have my own version of a spider story on my blog… http://aussietigger1980.blogspot.com/2007/03/ihatespiders.html
and that legend/story? my absolute worst nightmare come true.
read here regularly but haven’t commented before.
too funny!!!
but…not to worry…arachnids aren’t insects…so you’ll be fine!!! lol
blessings, mamabright
You would LOVE my best friend. She got her first pet tarantula about 3 months ago and she’s contemplating getting her second. She also spent about 6 weeks taking care of another tarantula, where she had to put antibiotics on it’s back with a cue-tip about 3 times a day. And she breeds Madagascar hissing cockroaches. You’d get along well. Mwa-ha-ha!
I’m right there with ya sistah – not the unit study part – the fear part. Only I don’t leave guts lying around – puts me off my food (sadly not for long but still…) and that just cannot happen.
Mamabright,
You’re absolutely right! I looked it up, and spiders are not a part of the insect group. Oh happy day.
Do you see why homeschooling is so good for me??
Oh, my, aren’t you brave!
I tried leaving the bug carcass to warn off other bugs. They would just step over it on their way to the pantry, so I finallly called an exterminator. I’m so glad I did!
Insects was actually one of the more exciting units that we did! You can get so creative with your lap books when you study insects. There’s also the cool Bill Nye the Science Guy videos, if you can find them in your library!
You made me feel all itchy and yucky so I thought I should go take a shower. But then I thought about a spider in my shower. Now I don’t know what to do.
Oh, spiders! I hate them too! I don’t even like to touch a page with a picture of a spider on it. I am okay with rats and snakes and lizards, and can even tolerate the presence of a cockroach, but the only time my kids saw me jump up on the sofa and yell was when there was a spider, a really ugly spider with really long, 3 inch legs, was running around our living room in the Philippines! Shudder… Kinda gave me some perspective. Now I can live with the little ones, even if they are on the wall of the shower or over my head. I used to call for my shining knight to KILLL! But those big ones, I DO NOT want to see them!
Oooh yuck… I don’t like spiders either.
I was once visiting someone in the Amazon jungle, and one morning I decided to take a shower. I climbed into the shower (which was bigger than the bathtubs we have here in the States) and was getting myself wet when I glanced over at the shower curtain to see…. a tarantula crawling up! I was terrified. I got out of that shower as fast as I could, even though it meant going right by the tarantula. I didn’t take another shower again for a few days until I absolutely had to.
(I’m sure that anecdote makes you feel so much better! It’s like Psycho but with spiders instead of crazy murderers.)
I.Hate.Spiders. Big ones make my flesh crawl, like little legs all over my body. Why oh why did you have to include a picture?
Icky! Reminds me of the Jim Stafford song “I Don’t Like Spiders & Snakes”! And the crunchy sound when you kill it is SO disgusting. Guess you probably wouldn’t get to far on Fear Factor, huh? I don’t like that show, but our man was on it once. I did have to watch that one ;o)
I don’t like spiders either, Boo Mama. Depending on the size depends on whether or not I will kill them myself.
OOPS!! I can’t believe I called you Boo Mama.
That will teach me to talk, listen to an 11 year old tell me about a game and try to comment all at the same time. Multi-tasking is overrated. Sorry about that.
That, my friends, is exactly why I will not let my children have a cactus plant. Even a little one. I choose to believe the story, too. I say expect the worst and that way, if it happens, you can rest assured knowing you were right, and if the worst doesn’t happen, you’ll be pleasantly surprised. They still can’t have a cactus, though.
And sweet mercy, that photo literally sent chills up and down my spine and almost scared the crap out of me! I’m not all that fond of spiders, either, especially the kind we have. Big, black, fuzzy, and they JUMP. THEY JUMP! They also like to hang out on the ceiling and then drop down in front of your face when you walk through the house. Not a nice surprise!
Wendy,
I consider it a complement!
Eeww…the spider pic. EEWW! If they are on the floor, I’ll stomp ‘em flat. If they are low on the wall, I’ll get a shoe to use. If in the shower, and oh lets hope it’s not, I guess I’d do the same thing you did and spray and jump out of the shower!
I HATE when they are above me. I just know they are going to land on my head. And if they land anywhere on me, I let out a blood curdling scream.
Ewww. Bad memories. I was actually doing fine until you had to show the picture at the end.
Thankyouverymuch! LOL
Brave, brave woman. I would flunk rather than touch that spider.
Now I’ve got a cactus that I need to go pawn off on somebody else…
I am so terrified of spiders that I call my husband home from work to take care of the especially scary ones!
Also, we’ve been talking about moving and were considering North Carolina until I read about their spiders!
I guess I won’t ever get to live in the south.
When I was in high school we studied insects and spiders and the pictures in my textbook were just torture. So a very sweet boy who sat in front of me put a post-it note on each photo with a little caption like, “Don’t look under here!”
Why aren’t boys/men afraid of spiders, I want to know.
I finally killed the last one of my pool spiders that I blogged about. It gave even me the heebie-jeebies. You’re a brave woman. I subscribe to the first bug casualty serving as a warning to others theory too. Works a little bit with ants. But they seem to get over it pretty quickly.
Yeah, see, I would NOT do that study. I could not eve put that nasty pic on my blog, where you almost lost me as a reader, my dear bloggy friend, but I will return, maybe when a few more posts have knocked that nasty tarantula off your front page.
I have a spider story that I need to share, but its only been 8 or 9 years, so I’m still a bit traumatized. Oh, did I mention I grew up in Arizona? Thats why I’m arachnophobic.
And I saw Willie Nelson throw a tarantula on a bar-b-que grill camping one time! Ok that didn’t scare me, but its a spider story, lol.
I wondered when you mentioned you were studying insects first. My kids LOVE bugs and spiders and all manner of creepy crawlies–in fact they ahve been known to catch them in the wonderful little bug catchers my mom-in-law got them. Last fall they caught a GIANT spider–which lived for a very long time into the winter in their little bug catcher (don’t ask me what he could possibly have eaten.) Mid winter I gave up all hope he would die on his own and gave him a good smushing–much to the disappointment of my kids. Later I found out while doing research (I like bugs and spiders and usually live happily beside them–until hubby freaks out because one lands on his keyboard and I have to go vaccuum them all up and look them up to make sure they aren’t poisonous) turns out this one was, very, besides being big and nasty and living happily in 2 degrees F. Ew.
I checked out Snopes.com about the story (because I was so creeped out I had to know). They say it isn’t true and couldn’t happen. I can sleep well at night now!!! Here is the link if you want to check it out. http://www.snopes.com/horrors/insects/cactus.asp
I absolutely hate spiders and thanks for the nightmares that will be occurring tonight! I often wake my husband up screaming “bugs and spiders” and pointing to the ceiling and walls. Strange I know!
Mel
while I can’t stand spiders, my biggest fear now is the not so cute scorpion. Did you know those little terrors can JUMP?! *shudder*
Why is it that you can feel a spider way before you see him? Enjoyed your post!
Ooh! Carla! You had to mention scorpions!!!
How many of you know they glow BRIGHT GREEN with a black light?
The girls and I visited my mother in NM. Her home is WAY cool, used to be a stage stop. ANYWAY, each night before bed we’d turn down/off the lights and go through our beds and bedrooms with a blacklight flashlight. We killed SIX of them in the 7 days we were there!
Good news is, you can kill ‘em with a fly swatter. Ask me how I know. [blech]
Oh my goodness… ROTFLOL. Because it was you and not me, heh-heh.
Eww, ewww, eww… I have literally threatened to spank my 5 year old if he came one step closer to me with the humongous centipede he found in the the basement. Poor little guy. But, I wasn’t kidding.
~Heather
I once emptied an entire bottle of aerosol hairspray on a rather large spider that was lurking in my bathroom. I sprayed and shrieked and it took forever but he died. He was watching me the whole time.
I will pray for you.
Spiders are my worst fear. I hyperventilate and pass out…literally. Oh how embarassing! But the worst thing about it is that I have to make sure I am not in the same room with the spider when it does happen because then…it may come over and crawl on me while I am lying there!! LOL
I’m cool with bugs, unless they jump at me…think huge Southern cockroaches and grasshoppers. Once a small spider built a web in the corner between the sink and the toilet of my bathroom and just sat there waiting for dinner, never moving, day after day. Then one day I saw a black ant on the floor and picked him up and dropped him on top of the web. I never saw a spider move so fast in my life. It grabbed the little ant and paralyzed it and ate it. The spider disappeared after that tastey meal and I got rid of the web.
Now mice and rats are a different story. I fear them greatly.
I used to store sweets in my closet, until one winter when we had a visitor mouse. I saw it run under my closed bedroom door, then straight into the closet, then I heard it munching down on my M & M’s and Oreo’s (who knew mice like chocolate?) late one night. I nearly had a heart attack and couldn’t sleep for most of the night, afraid it would jump up onto the bed. The next day i paid one of my sons $5.00 to take everything out of the closet floor and vacuum out the “evidence”. Worth every penny.
When I was in college I lived in a terrible apartment that was half on campus and half off campus and home to more bugs than you could count. The “landlord”, a term I’ll use out of respect for the office and not the man, finally had the place exterminated. Still, my back was host to a spider jamboree one night while I slept. The next day I discovered a ring of bites on the middle of my back the size of a large coffee mug, 15 bites in all.
Needless to say, I simply don’t do spiders.
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