> Andrew Fildes wrote:
> Ah, but do you get big hairy ones three to four inches apart which
> lurk high on walls and have the disturbing habit of dropping
> vertically on to you if even mildly alarmed.
As the designated spider-wrangler in the house, I've had to
get the magazine and cup or, as in the case of the above,
tupperware container, out a few times to expel the beasties
(the preference of the Loved One would be for them to be
mashed into paste, but I just recall the insane arm-waving
that arises from the mosquito problem, and the prosecution
rests). When I was a kid we would keep them in our lunchboxes,
and play with them during break (letting them climb up
your arm and over your hand). I wouldn't do that now,
adulthood instilling the requisite "sensibility" in me.
Although we've had them everywhere we lived (SE Queensland
had the most, as they'd hide in the trunks of the banana
palms), the biggest was at mum's place, one Christmas.
It was on the front door, and would easily had stretched
across an A4 or legal size piece of paper. When its
punishment was capitalised on, with a flailing thong (the
shoe-kind), it didn't squelch, but had its exoskeleton
fight back and crunch more like a mud-crab (being what
it reminded us of). I didn't want it dead, of course, but
my brother's partner had an extreme cultural aversion to
spiders, dead or alive, apparently associated with his
aboriginality , (we're not even allowed to mention that
spider's existence, not to mention its end, so he doesn't
know the above story and we don't know the full details
of the aversion). Family democracy reigned (ie. the
matriarch wanted it dead)
The funnelwebs in the back wall, however, can stay there
(I tell the Loved One not to spray them, lest they look for
more comfortable residency inside).
I'm not taking my macro lens up to photograph them, though
next summer I'll make sure I get shots of the big garden
spiders out the front.
Cheers,
Marc (not so scared of spiders and most other beasties, but
with an irrational fear of bees, wasps and hornets)
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