Spiders are different. Snakes, rats, and mice are just going about their business, trying to survive and avoid me more than I want to avoid them. Not spiders. Spiders are conniving, evil, intelligent creatures that are looking for an opportunity to inflict a slow, paralyzing, torturous death on me, beginning to devour all of my bodily fluids before I have lost consciousness, leaving me screaming in silence as I am being eaten alive by this hideous creature.
When I was a little girl, I had a bedroom in the basement. We had potato bugs in the basement. They aren't officially a spider but I think they are aliens sent down to farm humans for food. I woke up to find one on my pillow. I could see right into his hungry, black eyes.
As it is now, our size difference makes overtaking us unattainable. Don't underestimate them. They are intelligent creatures. Their conspiracy includes a plan to grow and grow and grow until they are big enough that we are no match to their massive, venomous assaults. I moved to Florida and witnessed their success towards this goal. The first of the monstrous arachnids presented itself to me while I was at work at a golf course. He was the size of a small rat, with legs long enough to reach out and lasso me. I knew the results of trying to crush this beast with my sandaled foot would be the sound of crushing bones, and thick, yellow, gooey intestinal fluids oozing out from under my shoe and up, onto my bare skin. I wished for a gun. I reached for a golf club. He was watching me! He knew what I was doing. I knew that any aggression from me and my golf club would only provoke the monster and he would shoot his sticky, silky web at me, rendering me completely incapacitated. His co-conspirators would leave their covenly crevices to feast on my helpless, writhing body. I ran, screaming.
I went canoeing with my husband and his cousin down a brackish river. I was still trying to adjust to the Florida wild life and was already on edge, concerned about alligators in the water. I kept my focus on the river's edge, watching for large reptiles. That kept my attention so diverted that I didn't notice the giant, eight legged stalkers, hanging from the trees, until one made it's attack by dropping into the canoe with a loud thunk. I don't have any memory of the battle that ensued between me and the hairy assailant. My next memory was standing on the river's edge in total terror, while my husband and his cousin were in the river trying to upright the water logged canoe. The alligator's were the least of my concern.
I don't know if there is anything we can do about this invasion and eventual, horrific annihilation. We are outnumbered and outwitted.
Before you dismiss me as arachniphobic, look at this picture taken by Donna Garde of the the Texas Parks & Wildlife and judge for yourself.
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