Close call, building engines is dangerous

[Sonic dB]

Maybe that would explain your propensity to spin webs from your arms at large buildings and swing through the streets of LA on them.

"my spider sense is tingling" - Peter Parker

[COLDBASS]

I hear ya. Last week I lifted the lid to the trash can and there was the biggest Black Widow I have ever seen during my 47 years on this planet. *****. Well I didnt have anything nearby and I wasnt brave enought to try to crush it with my bare hand, so I scrambled and found a can of Rustoleum...I think that I got it...

Sorry, any spider that I that crosses my path immediately will die. I am allergic to bee stings and a spider comes close to a bee as far as I am concerned...

[3.2 CAB]

Pigmy rattlesnakes do not have a rattle, rattlesnake pilots, do not have a rattle, tha rattlesnakes on Catalina Island have evolved into not having a rattle.

[911pcars]

Spiders, especially very large poisonous ones, give me the heebie jeebies. This fear manifested itself when I, as a youngster, was running with friends through some wild brush and happened through a very large spider web inhabited by a very large brown spider. Scared the shxt out me. But that was then. Life goes on.

Some years later, I was waiting in my car (Volvo wagon at the time) to pick up my daughter after school. Out of the corner of my eye, I see a dark object moving downward. Rotating my head about 5 degrees I see the largest black widow spider I've ever seen from a distance of 6 inches lowering herself (females are larger than males) on her web from the top window frame.

After the obligatory, "oh ****". I'm thinking; is this the species that can jump onto their victom and sink their fangs into my forehead or something, or is it the kind that spits venom for defense? I think what if a mild breeze from a passing car swings her 6.5 inches closer? After about .56 milliseconds pondering those questions, I'm onto next one: How can I make a rapid exit while strapped in my 3-point seat belt before it reaches my shoulder, then perhaps a quick scamper to (or into) more interesting places to crawl, explore, bite or spit?

However, I carefully opened the door and allowed it to lower herself to the ground before I shut it and the windows.... tightly. I think I even locked all 4 doors just in case. I then moved the car about 100 yards from where I was (probably only 10 feet). Yeah, I spared her life, me being a survivalist that I am, but I thought about that episode for a number of days after and still do on occasion. Do you think it could have taken sanctuary under my car and is still residing there?

Yours in arachnophobia,
Sherwood

[camgrinder]

This morning I was showing my neice the gas door in a '56 Chevy when there it was. I was in Folsom Ca at the time, we have rattlers, small scorpions (I have been biten) the black widow and brown recluse spiders. A freind of mine had a golf ball sized piece of flesh removed from his thigh from a recluse bite. After a few years around here you find yourself expecting to see something everytime you open a hood or a cover to something.
If the spiders or rattlers are near the house they got to go... this spider here is still in the '56 protecting the gas tank for me.

[kycarguy 935]

This past summer a snake got in my house. It was perched up on 2 boxes in the dining room that I was ready to take to storage. It was semi dark in this room and I thought I saw something out of place. I turned on the light and heard it slither to the floor, kind of like meat hitting the floor...lol. It scared the crap out of me. Not that im afraid of snakes, I just dont want to wake up one night and step on one while going to take a leak. So i did what any good southern redneck would do and got my .22 pistol and shot it. My friends were joking with me and said Im a redneck now that I shot a snake in the house and I told them yeah but how many rednecks actually hit the snake on the first try...lol.

I dont mind snakes outside but when they come in the house and could be aggresive to my family or friends then its time to do something.

[Paul Franssen]

I first came to the US when I was 12, to join my parents living in El Paso TX, so the first weekend we went to Big Bend Nat'l park and went on a long hike up the mountain. We were about three hours away from civilisation when I almost stepped onto a big rattler. I have no visual memory of it...
In our El Paso backyard, there were black widows all over the picknick table.
Drowned them in liquid Raid

[Silveresrty911S]

Originally posted by Bobboloo
Rattlesnakes at least rattle before they strike. I nearly stepped on a water mocassin once back in Texas. If it hadn't started tightening it's coil I would have stepped right on it. Yikes.!!!

Walked into my garage last week from work and was walking toward my car when out of the corner of my eye I saw a slight movement. It was a coiled up baby rattlesnake about 12-14" long that was about 4' away from me. That snake didn't make any sound as it's rattles were still devloping. A little scary knowing my daughter (7) loves to play in the garage. I'll always scoot the garder or king snakes out of harms way.

[rlane]

Brown Recluses have really only gotten noteriety in the last 20 years (though they have obviously been around for eons) In medical practice we just really started understanding that the wounds that patients came in with that just would not heal were due to this little bugger. Most of the time people never even see the culprit as they live under woodpiles, under porches etc and it is usually dark (OK..they are not vcalled recluses for nothing). I have become a big believer in gloves when I work in the yard.
While we do have plenty of rattlesnakes here in KY most of the deaths from snakebites each year occur in our churches..not on the hiking trails.
Keep the faith brothers!

[drummer323]

Amazing how something so small can scare the bejeebies out of something about a 1000 times larger that itself! I can't stand spiders, about the only thing we get are the wolf spiders, not really dangerous but very creepy, especially when they chase the dog!

[Zeke]

Originally posted by kycarguy 935
I told them yeah but how many rednecks actually hit the snake on the first try...lol.

Why, are rednecks poor shots?

In one of my pistols, the first two rounds are snake loads (.38 cal with a plastic cap and dinky shot). I set this up while living in AL and never changed my load. Figured whatever I might shoot at will be a snake of one variety or another unless I'm at the range.

Now that will sting. And if the first two don't get some attention, the hollow points coming up next will.

Nice shot. I though that only happened in movies. In the house, LOL................

[skipdup]

I spent several hours under my house this weekend fixing various items. It's an older house with pier & beam construction and about two feet of crawl space. The day before I went under, I threw 6 "bug bombs" under there to try and kill ANYTHING AND EVERYTHING that might be under there. Wore coveralls with feet and hand holes tightly taped. I must have smushed dozens of imaginary spiders that had somehow gotten into my clothing. Probably would have made quite the funny video.

I need to go back under for 10 minutes to finish the last project. Not sure that, after his thread, I'll make it.

Got bit by a Brown Recluse on my side when I was 14... Thought it would never heal. Had fun freaking the girls out with my rotting skin though.

My wife & I have a deal... I handle roaches, she does the spiders. Works out well.

This thread has throughly freaked me out.

- Skip

[masraum]

The only thing worse than a spider is running face first into a big web, because you know a spider must have been there at some point to build it, and if it's a big web you're thinking it must have been a big spider, but everytime I've ever run into a web the spider always ends up stuck to the part of the web that is still anchored, thank goodness. It's the unknown that's far scarier than the known.

[sammyg2]

Many years ago I watched a movie called Faces of Death.
Grossest movie of all time.
in that movie they showed a very, very large spider in the jungles of south America or Africa or Australia or where-ever that spins huge webs and catches birds.
The movie showed this monster spider catching a bird about the size of a sparrow (no monty python references please ) and running out and biting it until it was paralyzed. Darned thing looked like it was close to a foot across. Gave me the heebee geebies for sure.
I'd hate to run into one of those in my 911 engine (feeble attempt to stay on-topic).

[88911coupe]

Brown Recluse is also known as "Fiddleback Spider" due to the violin shaped mark on their back...VERY common here in Oklahoma. A good friend of mine lost a big chunk of his calf when he got bit by one that had taken up residence in a pair of levis. He was also EXTREMELY sick. My wife's totally parnoid about them and is conviced EVERY spider she sees is a fiddleback. For some reason she thinks, incorrectly, that our previous home (Dallas) doesn't have them very bad.
Now I have something else to worry about over and above my car squishing me when I have it up on lifts.
THANKS