With the weather increasingly getting warmer, I found the first spider that made its way into my apartment today. I hate spiders. I detest them. If they choose to come into my home, they don't live for very long. And unfortunately, one of the things that comes with living on my own is that I have to kill spiders. Lydia. Has to kill spiders.
If you know me in the slightest, you know I'm not a fan of bugs in general. But, spiders, I can't handle. Between spiders and stinging insects (bees, wasps, hornets, etc.), it's a close toss-up. However, the latter don't usually tend to get in your house. I'm not sure where my fear of these things came from...but still at the ripe age of 25, I squeal like a 5 year old if I see one of these tiny terrors.
Up until I moved to my own home in Norman, my dad always came to the rescue with a shoe quick in tow. He was keenly aware of the "spider scream" and came running as fast as he could to save me from it. If I happened to be home alone, I would generally tend to asphyxiate the thing with a can of hair spray. I can't stand squishing them--grosses me out.
Then, I moved over to my lovely little college house on Sunrise, and had roomies. My lovely roomies over the years (shout-outs to Stephanie, Allison, and Gracie) also knew of my hatred for these creepy crawlers. If no one was home when I found one at that house, I typically put a red solo cup on top of the creature until one of my lovely roomies came home and disposed of it properly :) thanks for humoring me guys. I owe you one.
There was the time (sometime during college) when an interior design project was due and my room was a disaster. I had clothes strung about in every corner of my room, and in the 5 minutes that I was home, happened to spot a GIANT spider dart under a pile of clothes. Allison tried to help me find it, but to no avail, the thing got away. I called my good ol' Pops in a panic and informed him he needed to come find the thing. ASAP. He found it, after moving piles and piles of clothes. And lo and behold, I wasn't exaggerating that time. It was a big one.
There was also the time that I walked into my boss Cathy's home. She was not home when I got there, but I saw a peculiar thing in the den: a big kitchen bowl turned over on the floor. I called her to ask what it was. She quickly asked if I had moved it. "No..." I answered. "Okay, don't touch it. We have to wait til Wally (her husband) gets home." My mind
immediately pictured a monstrous tarantula under the bowl. I calmly asked what it was...and Cathy didn't want to tell me! After much persuasion, I came to find out it was a snake. They often left the back door open so that the dogs could come and go as they pleased...and apparently a nice little garter snake decided to come in when no one was looking. HA. A snake, I was fine with. Giant spider? I would have been out the door and waiting for Wally to get home.
The biggest spider I've ever seen in the wild was actually in Mexico during the summer of 2008. On the Juners summer mission trip, we stay with a family in Mexico. We had been gone for a few days a little bit further south in Mexico. When we came back that day, we were in dire need of showers. The guys and girls shower rooms backed up to each other and we often times sang songs back and forth through a small opening in the wall. So, as Brooke, Taylor, Amy, and I got into our respective showers, there came a VERY loud squeal from Amy's curtain. I had already been in the shower a few minutes and had killed my normal parade of mosquitos that loved the humid bathroom. Amy's squeal was quite shrill and came with a few choice words if my memory serves me correct :) but, it was well deserved. For in her shower, was a wolf spider. And holy cow those things are big. I quickly grabbed my towel and scurried out because I didn't want the thing to corner me in MY shower. All of the girls were screaming and
finally the boys came running to see what the fuss was about. Even they were a bit scared to kill this thing. As Amy described it to her mom, if you put your index fingers and thumbs together and make a circle, that was the size of this thing. Eventually, the family that we stayed with came running and one of the twins killed the the spider. Needless to say, we were a bit more careful at getting in our showers after that incident :)
The other spider memory I remember came with a minor tragedy in the Frost family household. It was early December, sometime when I was in high school or college. My parents are already probably laughing as they think of that day. My dad's movie group was coming over. We had gone to Lowe's or Home Depot that day to get a
real Christmas tree. I wanted the biggest one mom would allow. Pops' job was to hold up a tree and turn it around while my mom and I inspected it. We finally found
the one: giant and full and absolutely perfect. After barely getting it in the car, we lugged it into the house (not an easy feat) and set it up in the living room. I was so excited to start decorating it but there were some leaves and other things close to the trunk of the tree. In the process of getting out the dead leaves, two jumping spiders hopped onto the wall. I squealed, Pops came running. In the meantime, one of my dad's friends had arrived for the movie group. Rhonda, an avid animal lover, didn't want us to kill these spiders. I informed her, "Sorry...they come in this house, they die." I understand that spiders are great for the environment...blahblahblah. But, there are plenty more in the wilderness where they belong...and not in my house. During the process of removing the dead leaves, I found what looked like an oddly shaped acorn. I showed it to my mom, and Rhonda inquisitively looked at it as well. They both realized what it was, but I'm pretty sure mom couldn't have contained Rhonda's excitement if she tried.
Our perfect Christmas tree (think Christmas Vacation style) was infested with spiders. And in fact, the nice little acorn I found? A spiders egg. Full of 1000+ tiny little spiders.
Rhonda wanted to open the acorn and my mom quickly saw how hysterical I was about to come. She gave her a ziploc baggie and asked her to do it outside. Sure enough, the amount of teeny tiny spiders was a sight to see...and one that sent me over the edge. I was hysterical (laughing as I type this at the memories it brings back). Screaming and crying and wanting to be as far away from the tree as I could. Sweet mom had to take the tree back to Lowe's/Home Depot and explain that her grown daughter couldn't handle the wildlife that came with the tree. The young salesgirl laughed and told my mom a story that I would have totally been able to handle: a few years earlier, a family brought a Christmas tree back because a LIVE POSSUM was attached to the tree trunk and playing dead. Possum? No problem. Spiders? No thanks.
At least Ukrainian winters are good for something: I haven't had to see one spider in 5+ months :)
P.S. My family invested in a nice fake tree after that experience. No real trees for Lydia anytime soon...
