You learn something new every day...

[Jane]

Snakes are fun!

I *think* I would like snakes but we don't have any in New Zealand.

[Mikel]

About a week later I went around to visit my dad (he and my husband are great friends) and as I'm leaving dad reaches into the cupboard and pulls out a glass jar.  "Do you want this back?" he asked.

I think I love your dad

[Eimi]

My best spider story ever was actually not MY story specifically, it was my friend's...

I was helping to film two old shipbuilders building a traditional handmade wooden boat with/for my friend Tom, who lives out in a little fishing village 20 minutes outside of town.  Since they only worked on it on the weekends we (me and one or two other guys) would stay over Saturday night, and of course there was usually some sort of drinking involved.

One night, the other two boys had crashed and I was still awake checking my e-mail.  Tom walked by on his way to bed and said good night.  I heard him walk into his bathroom, and then I heard an "Oh s%&*!!!" and the toilet flush.  Then I heard it again.  He then went about his business.  Being in a house full of boys, I figured someone had left him a present.

Tom came back out and said "You'll never believe what I just found in the toilet bowl!"  And of course I think thinking **Please don't describe it to me, that's just gross...** but as the sister of three brothers I heaved an inward sigh and asked "Oh yeah?  What?"  "When I flipped on the light, I looked down into the toilet bowl and there was the biggest spider I'd ever seen in my life!" (Which would scare me enough just right there since he gets huntsmen on a daily basis in the summer...)  "A huntsman in it that filled the ENTIRE BOWL of the toilet!  I tried to flush it and it swirled down the drain, but when the tank had emptied itself, it's legs were still sticking out of the hole wiggling, so I had to flush that sucker TWICE to get the whole thing down!"

Yeah, needless to say, no matter how much I had to drink that night, I didn't use the toilet again for LITERALLY 12 hours...

[PastMember]

Oh gods... Spiders... *shudders and twitches*

I can tell you _exactly_ where my arachnophobia began. First, I was already creeped by the little uglies after seeing the movie Something Wicked This Way Comes. There's a scene where the main character (a kid) wakes up in the middle of the night and his ceiling cracks and all these spiders swarm in... So what happens to me a couple years later? I had the singularly despicable experience of having a nest of brown spiders created in my mattress. Woke up incredibly itchy/tickly and looked down to find me and my blankets covered in newborn spiders.

A decade later, I went to Oz. Woke up, went to the bathroom, and nearly passed out at the sight of a massive (aka bigger than my HEAD!) huntsman in the sink! (And yes, Kaysea, this was in Victoria! The northern area, but still)   I screamed like a little girl, and my friend Allan's mum came in and was like 'Oh, I guess that would be a little startling the first thing in the morning. Go use my loo, I'll take care of it.'

Strangely, snakes I am okay with, as long as I know they're there. I have a ball python in my apartment right now and he's okay, I can pick him up and watch him eat and all that. Reptile House at the zoo, yep, I know to expect snakes. Now, if I turn around and a keeper has one out in close proximity, it skeeves me out.

[Kaysea]

Well, after a hard day at work I came home to find the family had finished dinner, but had left mine in the microwave.  Not wanting to sit and eat all on my own in the dining room, I took my plate into the lounge, and sat down on the couch to eat my meal.

The light wasn't on coz they were watching a horror movie.   I sat down and started eating dinner, I was glancing from my plate to the screen so my eyes weren't fully focused any time I looked down at the food.

One time I glanced down, took a fork full, and was about to look back at the screen when I saw a greyish coloured shape on my knee. Even in a dark room, with dark pants I could tell that really shouldn't have been there.

It took me a minute or so to realise what it actually was.  The plate when flying across the room, as did the poor bloody huntsman.  I broke off one of his legs.

The kids flicked on the light switch and there he is with only seven of his legs, and one of those was broken.  He hobbled off behind the speaker while I cleaned up my dinner.

The next day he had made it to the top of the floor based speaker, and lay there for the next few days recuperating from his experience.  Then a few nights later, hubby is sitting on the couch nearby the speaker, and the cat, Jett, walks in.  I am once again have a late dinner, and shooed the cat away from me.

Jett went over to hubby, and perched on the arm of the couch for a moment.  Then decided the speaker would be a better vantage point and pounced.  The spider saw the shape of Jett coming, and leapt off the speaker onto the floor.  The cat spotted the spider and pounced down after him, stood on him with a paw before taking the spider in his mouth.  

He then walked over to the floor in front of me, sat down and proceeded to eat my little mate - right in front of me.

Meanwhile, my husband is in tears of laughter at the look of horror on my face.  Not because I saw the spider getting eaten because it was a gory sight, but because my little mate was eaten by the cat!!!

I didn't talk to the cat for over a week!


~~~

But there is the time I got trapped in the bathtub by a huntsman and the hubby and the brother laughed at me - until the brother flicked the huntsman out of the pelmet over the window -- they soon joined me in the bathtub!  Now if I scream spider, they know I mean  B I G spider.

[Mikel]

But there is the time I got trapped in the bathtub by a huntsman and the hubby and the brother laughed at me - until the brother flicked the huntsman out of the pelmet over the window -- they soon joined me in the bathtub!  Now if I scream spider, they know I mean  B I G spider.

Pelmet?

Your husband AND brother joined you in the tub?

[Kaysea]

But there is the time I got trapped in the bathtub by a huntsman and the hubby and the brother laughed at me - until the brother flicked the huntsman out of the pelmet over the window -- they soon joined me in the bathtub!  Now if I scream spider, they know I mean  B I G spider.

Pelmet?

Your husband AND brother joined you in the tub?

Pelmet is like a cover that fits over the curtain rail...

And yes, the huntsman dropped down from under the pelmet, and stood on his hind legs with his forelegs in the air, watching the guys.....  they jumped into the bath with me..

And I've just realised.... I wasn't bathing - I was cleaning the bath!  We were moving out of the house and I was doing a final clean before we gave the keys back.

*falls off chair laughing in hysterics, at the impression she gave*