- Two stories of dread and loathing.
Zombie Spider.
This story starts at home when I was around 10 years old. We lived in the tropics in Cairns, a house on the side of a mountain. Wildlife was not only common but rather invasive. I was in my bedroom (coloured in red and black; my choice, my wussy sister went with shades of blue). I was about to go to sleep when this spider moved down the wall behind my bed. A huntsman.
So naturally I yelled out for mum and dad, I was about to be eaten! Cue 2 tired parents coming in… From the closet I pointed out the spider. My Parents gasped. I hid behind legs. My sister laughed. I don’t like her.
Mum ran and got a full can of Peabo (an insect spray), ready to hand to the father protector. Meanwhile dad had fetched a screwdriver the size of 3 wombats (that’s huge btw). Dad emptied the can on the spider. There was so much foam all you could see was small twitching’s of the tips of the spider legs in a white blog of shaving cream.
We all breathed a sigh of relief. The fierce beast was vanquished. Dad to make sure, poked it with the three-wombat blade. It convulsed on the tool and grabbed it, and 4 people ran screaming from the room.
Not our finest hour…
Hidden Spider, Crouching Spider.
Let us jump forward in time, from 10 to 20, I was now at uni. My Mazda 929 coupe had died and all I could afford was a beat-up old Toyota corolla. It was so old, it could have been considered vintage, but way less sexy. (It was over 25 years old).
It was so bad; the driver’s side window didn’t close properly. There were days when I arrived at work soaking wet on my right-hand side because of this (driving in the rain). What does this have to do with spiders? You may have guessed where this is going but I am going to explain anyhow.
There I was, happily toddling off to work, early morning, and I pulled up to a set of lights, the sun was in my eyes, and, as you do, I lowered the sun visor.
Cue hyperventilation. I had never experienced that before. Not all new experiences are good. This spider (huntsman) was 5 inches in front of my face, staring at me. The light was red. I was in the right-hand turning lane. This was the longest light change in my life, and all the while I was panting in fear.
Eventually the light changed to a green arrow after three or four years and I burned rubber, well as much as a 25-year-old crap car could do and turned right. Thankfully, the left-hand side of the road contained a school than ran for 200 meters before I could pull over in a driveway. I wasn’t really thankful, by the way. I was more screaming in my head for a driveway now!
I finally made it to the driveway and pulled in. I swear at this stage the spider was licking its lips… All eight eyes looking at me, with a deep hunger.
Taking a deep breath, while not taking my eyes off it, I reached over blindly and grabbed my book off the passenger sit and wound down the driver’s side window.
BLAMO!
Spider out the window! I was a hero. I braved the dragon and was victorious. After some quiet sobbing for a bit, I looked out the window…
No spider. WTF! I wasn’t sobbing for that long. I cautiously opened the driver side door. And I am not proud of this, leapt out, not calming stepping down, but I actually leapt out. The devious little sucker could have been waiting just under the car, biding its time to kill.
I looked wildly around, no spider. I looked under the car, no spider. I checked my clothing frantically because that made logical sense. No spider. Can spiders just disappear? Was it hiding on the under carriage of the car? I eventually went to Uni; nothing went into my brain that day and I went home later. But for six months, I daily checked the sun visor…