Spider Infestation, or, what the Marquis and Na'Lon talked about at breakfast

[na_lon]

This morning I came down to the kitchen to find the Marquis eating one of the last two pancakes that Skordh had bought at the weekend (I had the other) and reading White Dwarf magazine. This issue included information about the Games Workshop version of Shelob.

Said metal spider looked to be about the size of a large living spider, it's body about the size of a thumbnail.

For some reason this led onto the question of what one would do if Shelob infested one's house. I felt that even I -- usually quite tolerant of spiders in the house -- would be inclined to evict Shelob. "How?" the Marquis wanted to know. I suggested putting a glass over her and sliding some cardboard under, but the Marquis pointed out that the glass would have to be very large. On balance we felt that we'd be more likely end up being evicted by her rather than the other way round. On the whole we felt that this would not be a good state of affairs, especially as the landlady might not be too chuffed, if she couldn't rent her house out again, with that sort of spider in it. Then the following scenario came into being:

We open the front-door to the carport, to reveal a large mass of stick white silk.

"Oh shit, there's something moving in there!" says the Marquis. "Something large." He slams the door.

We then call the RSPCA and ask them to bring a large net. "Please come quickly. We are worried about our neighbours, everything seems to have gone quiet..."

Fortunately, there was no oversized arachnid in our carport this morning. So here I am at work, killing a little time until our Level III Subject board starts.

Comments

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

No oversize spidders, true, but lots of cobwebs covered in the fluffy pollen stuff that jane_somebody called "old man's beard" or somesuch.

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

Do you mean the poplar things that I think of as "pioppini" and used to call "fuzzy-wuzzies" in English, until advised this would certainly be taken as a racial slur on the Cowley Road?

[viala-qilarre.livejournal.com]

Creepy spider stories never have any affect on me since I just don't care about spiders at all. No matter how big, how hairy, how many legs. (Well. I suppose they have to have eight or they're not spiders. You see how little it bothers me?)

We did once see the most humungeous mutant spider when we lived in a flat on Kineton Road, many many years ago. It was so large, we thought it must have come out of a banana crate or something. It lurked on the ceiling of our bedroom, in the corner, for a while.

Now DEAD spiders. That's another matter!

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I don't know why spiders bother me. Oh yes I do, actually. Visible fangs, that's it. And a tendency to scuttle. But I hate to have them killed.

On the other hand dead things only seriously bother me if they contain live things of a wiggly nature.

[eudesia.livejournal.com]

Yes - I have to agree with Pellegrina here.

I don't mind spiders too much - as long as I can see where they are. Their physical appearance doesnt bother me that much (unlike long segmented things). But the scuttling...having something running over me that might be heading anywhere and I don't know where it is...ugh.

That said - I much prefer big cuddly hairy spiders to the horrible long things on stilts with the creepy little bodies. Ugh.

During the big clean of the hall on sunday I had to get Viala to remove quite a few spiders. But for the questionably dead one, we had to get Murgi. I wasn't going there in case it scuttled, and Viala wasn't going there in case it didn't. ;)

[pellegrina.livejournal.com]

I prefer stilt spiders because you can if necessary grab them by the feet and the fang things are still a certain distance away.

There is something disturbing about a furry body that does not contain an endoskeleton.