Careful in the morning.

August 5, 2012 6:44 PM

Public Service Announcement About Spiders. Just so you know.
posted by sweetkid (61 comments total)

I think all magazines and websites should have this warning, so I don't happen upon something that will result in "GAHHHHRGH, QUICK TURN THE PAGE!"
posted by computech_apolloniajames at 6:47 PM on August 5, 2012

This happened to a friend of my cousin.
posted by You Should See the Other Guy at 6:55 PM on August 5, 2012

I KNEW IT
posted by capricorn at 6:57 PM on August 5, 2012

Spider behavior can be profoundly affected by environmental issues...like drugs.
posted by jquinby at 7:02 PM on August 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

Spiders are cute and awesome and do not plot to kill people in their shoes.

I found one the other day living in my pothos and she waved her wee arms hello at me! I left her alone so she can continue to feast on other bugs and not hide in my shoes.

Seriously look how cute her family is. <-WARNING CONTAINS SPIDER PHOTO.
posted by winna at 7:09 PM on August 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

This guy has several other very short videos that I found way funnier than I should have.

Radiator.

Brush brush, brush yo teeth
posted by Countess Elena at 7:12 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Bearded Man Jogging.
posted by sweetkid at 7:17 PM on August 5, 2012

Spiders are NOT CUTE.


That is all.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:20 PM on August 5, 2012 [4 favorites]

This happened to my son. He was putting his school boots on one morning, and he suddenly shrieked that something was in one of them. And you know how dangerous Aussie spiders are...

He reefed off the boot and out fell a tiny green frog, about an inch long. I laughed 'til I cried.

Upon preview: spiders are SO CUTE, St Alia. And clever. Except for redback spiders which are just vicious murderous bastards who aren't happy unless you're dead.
posted by malibustacey9999 at 7:25 PM on August 5, 2012

I will take all your spiders, Alia, and then I will have a house of tiny eight-legged friends! it is a win-win situation!
posted by winna at 7:31 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Spiders eat mosquitoes. For that reason alone, they always get gently chauffeured outside when I find one in the shower.
posted by figurant at 7:35 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Oh man, one time I turned on my hairdryer to obvsly dry my hair, so it was naturally AIMED RIGHT AT MY FACE, and in doing this I awakened an extremely startled spider who had been napping within, and who subsequently flew out at me with the first blast of air. I am not sure which one of us was more horrified but since I WAS THE ONE WHO FELT TINY SKITTERING LEGS ON MY FACE PROBABLY IT WAS ME OH GOD WHY CAN I REMEMBER THIS SO CLEARLY OH GOD MAKE IT STOP

brb xanax
posted by elizardbits at 7:35 PM on August 5, 2012 [47 favorites]

weeping openly now
posted by elizardbits at 7:36 PM on August 5, 2012 [8 favorites]

I had one crawl on me while I was reading in bed a few weeks ago. I threw the sheets off me, jumped out of bed and flipped on the overhead light. Couldn't find the bastard for a few minutes. I don't normally kill spiders, but if you touch my skin you've crossed a line, buddy. He skittered across the floor and I smacked him. He had a toilet funeral accompanied by a prayer.

I sat wide awake in my brightly lit bedroom for the next two hours, kleenex at the ready.
posted by desjardins at 7:41 PM on August 5, 2012 [9 favorites]

I only wear sandals.

Problem solved. High five, maryr!
posted by maryr at 7:44 PM on August 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

if you touch my skin you've crossed a line, buddy

That's what she said.
posted by maryr at 7:45 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

whyohwhy am I reading this before bedtime whywhywhy
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 7:46 PM on August 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

I don't have any strong pro or con feelings toward spiders (I mean, it's not like it's a Chicago centipede or something), but let it be known that I will kill the shit out of anything that comes into my house uninvited. TAKE NOTE, SPIDERS.
posted by phunniemee at 7:47 PM on August 5, 2012

I had one crawl on me while I was reading in bed a few weeks ago.

Beds are spider traps, because they crawl up some bedding on the floor, or the wall, but they can't get down again. So they wait.
posted by Brian B. at 7:58 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Centipedes are the devil's handmaidens and obviously must be killed with extreme prejudice wherever they are found.

Eight legs good, twenty to two hundred legs bad.
posted by winna at 7:58 PM on August 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

Who else thinks the spiders got winna and are using his/her account?

> "...tiny, eight-legged friends."

Pfff.

Nice try, spiders...
posted by Fists O'Fury at 8:10 PM on August 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm not worried about spiders crawling into my shoes and hassling me. Within a couple of months of moving to Texas, I was woken up in the middle of the night because a scorpion had crawled into my bed and stung me on the top of the head.

The top of the head, seriously. What the hell.

I haven't had a truly decent night's sleep since then. This was close to 2 years ago.
posted by King Bee at 8:12 PM on August 5, 2012 [7 favorites]

but let it be known that I will kill the shit out of anything that comes into my house uninvited

but

lost kittehs
posted by elizardbits at 8:22 PM on August 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Who else thinks the spiders got winna and are using his/her account?

I think you've got it. I can hear them skittering on winna's keyboard from here.
posted by sweetkid at 8:23 PM on August 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Strangely Adorable Spider.
posted by Kronos_to_Earth at 8:33 PM on August 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

Don't be silly. The spiders love me! We hang out and everything! True, I have to buy all the food and pay all the bills and type their Internet messages for them on account of how the iPad doesn't register their tiny footprints, but otherwise it's a totally respectful relationship based on love, trust and my ability to fuel the unending spider party with my labor hey wait a minute here.

It could be worse. They could be like archy and write a tell-all exposé!


A spider and a fly

i heard a spider
and a fly arguing
wait said the fly
do not eat me
i serve a great purpose
in the world

you will have to
show me said the spider

i scurry around
gutters and sewers
and garbage cans
said the fly and gather
up the germs of
typhoid influenza
and pneumonia on my feet
and wings
then i carry these germs
into households of men
and give them diseases
all the people who
have lived the right
sort of life recover
from the diseases
and the old soaks who
have weakened their systems
with liquor and iniquity
succumb it is my mission
to help rid the world
of these wicked persons
i am a vessel of righteousness
scattering seeds of justice
and serving the noblest uses

it is true said the spider
that you are more
useful in a plodding
material sort of way
than i am but i do not
serve the utilitarian deities
i serve the gods of beauty
look at the gossamer webs
i weave they float in the sun
like filaments of song
if you get what i mean
i do not work at anything
i play all the time
i am busy with the stuff
of enchantment and the materials
of fairyland my works
transcend utility
i am the artist
a creator and demi god
it is ridiculous to suppose
that i should be denied
the food i need in order
to continue to create
beauty i tell you
plainly mister fly it is all
damned nonsense for that food
to rear up on its hind legs
and say it should not be eaten

you have convinced me
said the fly say no more
and shutting all his eyes
he prepared himself for dinner
and yet he said i could
have made out a case
for myself too if i had
had a better line of talk

of course you could said the spider
clutching a sirloin from him
but the end would have been
just the same if neither of
us had spoken at all

boss i am afraid that what
the spider said is true
and it gives me to think
furiously upon the futility
of literature

archy
― Don Marquis, Archy and Mehitabel
posted by winna at 8:36 PM on August 5, 2012 [9 favorites]

Spiders are NOT CUTE.

Some cute spiders, previously.
posted by stebulus at 8:46 PM on August 5, 2012

This happened to me! I live in a very green, tree-y area and leave my shoes outside so I normally check my shoes to make sure spiders aren't in there. However one morning, two days after my son was born and sleep deprived, I went to the supermarket to go get some stuff and, just this once, didn't bother to check my shoes.

I drove to the shops... a trip that takes about 10 minutes... and started doing my groceries. Not long after, as I was walking down one of the aisles, I felt a sharp pain on my left big toe. I reacted and took a few steps, trying to shrug off the pain (as it were) and then my brain remembered that I hadn't checked my shoes for spiders. I flung my shoe off and out ran one of these. It ran at breakneck speed under one of the shelves before I could react and catch and kill it. Even in this moment of panic and sleep deprivation my mind was thinking "catch it in case its some weird kind of spider and they need to give you anti-venom".

Luckily it wasn't a weird kind of spider. Just a Huntsman. My toe hurt like hell. Assuming it was a Huntsman I checked Wikipedia on my phone and it said I was unlikely to die. I didn't get any of the other side-effects. My guess is that the thick socks I was wearing helped lessen its bite. For the next few days my big toe tingled a bit but it never swelled and, importantly (and contrary to the lesson in the linked-to video), I continued to live.

I just keep thinking my foot shared a tight confined space with an angry Huntsman spider for about 15 minutes or so before it finally bit me. If it had bit me while driving things could have been a lot worse. I don't know why it took so long for the sucker to nip me. I got lucky, I guess.

tl;dr A spider hiding in my shoe bit my big toe & I still draw breath.
posted by Effigy2000 at 8:55 PM on August 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

So a couple of months ago I was at the playground with my kids. I was talking with one of the neighborhood kids and I happened to notice this fascinating little green spider crawling along the rim of the trash can. "Hey, look at this spider," I said to the kid. "Look at how he's got translucent green legs with black stripes, and he has orange eyes. That is so cool. Hmmm, he is just an inch away from this ant. I wonder if he's going to get the ant? You know some spiders just jump on their prey rather making webs. He kind of looks like he's getting ready to jump---" and the spider jumped ON MY FACE and I ran away screaming.
posted by fantabulous timewaster at 9:49 PM on August 5, 2012 [13 favorites]

From the same youtube account: Bearded Man Jogging
posted by NoraReed at 9:55 PM on August 5, 2012

A spider hiding in my foot bit my shoe once.
posted by aubilenon at 10:22 PM on August 5, 2012

Last Sunday I went on a cleaning binge including the junk and dust bunnies under my bed. Monday morning I woke up nauseous with my arm on fire and a red lump on my right forearm. Seems I must have disturbed a black widow. There were two more smaller bites on my bicep but all the poison must have gone into that first one. Not deadly but also not something I'd like to repeat. Felt quite a bit better after a doctor visit and a couple injections. Now I've an ugly little hole in my forearm but it should heal up soon.

Yesterday I was giving my basement a more thorough cleaning and found what appeared to be a dessicated mouse haunch hanging from a web in the plumbing under my bathroom. I don't want to meet that spider.
posted by the_artificer at 11:03 PM on August 5, 2012 [5 favorites]

I think I'll throw my shoes out the window this morning before putting them on. You know... just in case.
posted by Ms. Moonlight at 11:08 PM on August 5, 2012

When I was a teenager, my bedroom was a converted garage. By converted, I mean that there was a carpet laid down; the walls were still regular garage walls, and it was still full of my father's power tools. It was cold in the winter and hot in the summer, and there were machines for washing and drying clothes that occasionally a rat would crawl behind and die, which I am now comfortable saying was sub-optimal without feeling like I'm being an ingrate.

The most memorable of the garage-living experiences, however, was one night when I woke up and discovered that there were no fewer (and possibly more) than thirteen full-size spiders crawling on my previously-sleeping body. If you will allow me a lie for the sake of preserving my dignity, I would like to inform you that my reaction to this development was one of level-heading reserve and stoic masculinity.

Once I was satisfied that I had removed all of the spiders from my body and bed, I spent some time wondering why they'd decided to gather on me. I had never heard anything to suggest that spiders were social creatures, and I couldn't think of anything particularly special I'd done that night that would have drawn them. I briefly considered the possibility that a nest of them had hatched in my bed, which would have been terrible but would have at least made sense, but these spiders were far too large for that to be a possibility. Eventually, I was forced to acknowledge the truth that I'd been trying to avoid:

There was nothing special about that night, save that I'd awakened. In all likelihood, I had a dozen or more spiders crawling across my unconscious form every single night.

Anyway, sweet dreams, MetaFilter.
posted by Parasite Unseen at 11:41 PM on August 5, 2012 [22 favorites]

I'll be saving so much money because I'll never buy nor use shoes again. Thanks, sweetkid!
posted by deborah at 11:57 PM on August 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

Long as it's not a scorpion, I'm okay. I like spiders.

Mate of mine was on holiday in Greece, came out of the shower, wrapped himself in the towel that had been folded on a chair and was promptly stung on the dong by a scorpion. He spent the rest of the holiday in self-administered raki anaesthesia.
posted by Decani at 2:50 AM on August 6, 2012

When I was a kid, on my last day on holiday in Devon, a bee hid inside my slipper... that made the long journey home rather lacking in fun (though I do remember getting a massive ice cream in compensation)
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 3:44 AM on August 6, 2012

I remember when I moved to the bedroom in the (half-finished) basement. It had not been opened for several months, since my stepbrothers left. We opened the door and fortunately reached in to turn on the light before entering, because the entire room was filled with web. Just a giant tangled web filling 150 or so square feet, an arachnid galaxy studded with little bulbous black spidery suns.

We did the only thing we could think of: we fetched the canister vacuum and went to work.

(vmmmmmmmTHUNKvmmmmmTHUNKUNKvmmmm).

We left the vacuum bag outside that night, like it was an incontinent puppy.
posted by Scattercat at 4:41 AM on August 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Right after I climbed into bed last night I looked up and there was a spider on the ceiling.




I turned off the light and went to sleep.
posted by underthehat at 4:53 AM on August 6, 2012

You better also hope there are no grapes in yer shoes...or something...
posted by Fists O'Fury at 5:06 AM on August 6, 2012

Yeah, well, I really don't like putting my bare feet in shoes and *squish* oh _uck! Thanks Sir Barfsalot. At least spiders don't squish up between your toes...
posted by mightshould at 6:00 AM on August 6, 2012

I would allow a dozen spiders to sleep on my unconscious form if we had a deal that they would rid the world of bed bugs. And then I imagine all the presents the world would give to me in thanks. I have strange fantasies.
posted by angrycat at 6:05 AM on August 6, 2012

Just think about how bad the spiders have it. They need to check eight shoes before putting them on.
posted by orme at 6:25 AM on August 6, 2012 [8 favorites]

I am phobic of insects, for reasons related to my past.

Which means that I UTTERLY ADORE spiders.
posted by kyrademon at 6:26 AM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I hate mosquitoes and pantry moths more than I hate spiders so for the most part I leave them alone. Only when my house starts looking like a film set for a haunted house movie do I think about knocking down some of the webs.

Three years ago a golden orb spider decided to set up her web right in front of my kitchen window. For months I got to watch her every time I stood at the sink. I really enjoyed that; I don't know how she felt about the whole thing.
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 6:30 AM on August 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

Mosquitoes swarm just outside my kitchen windows (6th floor, so it's probably something with air flow). So, naturally, there's a lot of big fat spiders.

However, the same place is a resting place for birds during the day. So there's a war going on, ups and downs all the time in the spider population.
posted by flif at 6:54 AM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

This is why I check in the fingers of the workgloves I keep in the shed before I put them on.
Or sometimes I just smack the fingers with a hammer.
It is good to know I am not alone.
posted by Adridne at 6:56 AM on August 6, 2012

Spiders are awesome. But earwigs are not. FML.
posted by moneyjane at 7:09 AM on August 6, 2012

But... he is our hero.

We love you spider.
posted by JHarris at 7:25 AM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

(I PROMISE NOT TO KILL YOU)
posted by JHarris at 7:26 AM on August 6, 2012

Pshaw. What does an "insects expert" know about spiders?
posted by straight at 8:02 AM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Any guy can seem cool on a bike. If you really want to know what kind of man you've got watch him walk through a spider web."—Danny Zuker
posted by Toekneesan at 8:59 AM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

"Any guy can seem cool on a bike. If you really want to know what kind of man you've got watch him walk through a spider web."—Danny Zuker

This is great advice. If your man walks through a spider web and doesn't completely lose his shit, then you'll know there's a very good chance that you've been secretly dating a spider.
posted by phunniemee at 9:34 AM on August 6, 2012 [13 favorites]

One of my favorite scenes from the Mortal Kombat movie is when the good guys are chasing after someone into a tunnel and they are brushing massive gobs of cobwebs out of their way as they walk down the corridor and saying, "I think she went this way!"
posted by straight at 9:54 AM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Proudest moment of my life: while jb was away for some reason, I vanquished three giant house spiders, one after another, twice on two consecutive nights. That is to say: in the middle of the night I woke to find a giant house spider hanging over my bed, and removed it from the house without hurting it, then came back and found another one, and got rid of that, and then a third, and then the next night the exact same thing happened with three new spiders. At one point I was chasing a spider across some curtains, and the darned thing was so big I could hear its legs pattering over the cloth.

Tip: if you don't want to see pictures of huge, scary (but utterly harmless) spiders, don't google 'giant house spider'.
posted by Dreadnought at 9:22 PM on August 6, 2012

> If it had bit me while driving things could have been a lot worse.

> He kind of looks like he's getting ready to jump---" and the spider jumped ON MY FACE and I ran away screaming.

Back when I was a teenager I had a side job helping an older couple take care of their property, they had a couple of acres and horses and needed someone to help with upkeep. One afternoon, done with all the chores, I walked through a big spider web going to my car. I brushed it out of my hair and kept going.

But once I started driving down the driveway I felt a tickle of a spider crawling across my face, I was paralyzed trying to figure out how to deal with this. When I felt little spider feet scampering across my eyelid I finally freaked out and started frantically rubbing and slapping my face. My car came to a stop after I had driven through a split rail fence into the paddock and collided softly with the mountain of composted horse manure next to the barn.

The spider might have been tiny but it felt like a tarantula walking on my face. And no real harm was done after I fixed the fence that I drove through, but there was horse shit stuck in the deep recesses of my front bumper and radiator for the rest of that summer. Although she wouldn't say why she dumped me, I'm pretty sure my first serious girlfriend left me because my car and I smelled of toasted horse shit for a while after that.
posted by peeedro at 9:51 PM on August 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I live in North Florida and we have these spiders called Banana Spiders because they are large enough to peel and eat a banana, insolently, right in front of you in their ginormous thirty-square-feet semi-visible webs that they spin in like two hours or so while you're out and that you can walk right into if you forgot to leave the porch light on and your glasses are fogged up.

They are beautiful multicolored beasts with sparkly jade and yellow bodies, and they feel like an eight-legged chihuahua when they crawl all over your face and head trying to clamber back to safety while you pull thick strands of silk desperately out of your eyes and nose and mouth.

They are mostly harmless.
posted by Cookiebastard at 7:28 AM on August 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

Once I was in a stoned writing craze and this spider I swear to fucking God, was dive bombing me. It would get right above my head and drop on me. Me: WTF Spider: Climb climb climb back above your head. Me: Shift my work four feet to the side. Spider: Shift shift DROP. Could it be the spider was also stoned, being within pipe range, was like, puff puff pass do not bogart that shit or I will DROP on you? The world wonders.
posted by angrycat at 9:52 AM on August 7, 2012

A few years ago I was out at the pistol range, which is covered to give shade, a spider the size of a goddamn beagle was in a web in between me and the targets; he became the target, all that was left after he was smacked dead-on with a .44 magnum bullet was some spatters of legs in the web. I am a mighty hunter.

Twice I have been bitten by brown recluse spiders. Spiders suck. I fucking hate spiders.
posted by dancestoblue at 4:42 PM on August 7, 2012

Spider lives in woman’s ear for five days
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:52 PM on August 9, 2012

These spider threads are converging.
posted by maryr at 3:20 PM on August 9, 2012