Rural spiders

[Anonymous Poster]

My daughter and I were on our way to the flea market and since it was the middle of the day we got hungry and swung through the drive through at Taco Bell for lunch. I was driving, and trying to manipulate this overstuffed burrito into my mouth when I had to stop at a traffic light.

There was a group of men in the truck next to us at the light. Here I am snarfing down this burrito and this fairly good looking guy in the truck next to us was staring. I could feel it. It's been a long time since I got this kind of attention from a construction worker so after I got over this "I still got it' emotion I started to feel that old spark of annoyance.

I looked over at him and he smiled. I smiled back with hot sauce running down my chin. He smiled again, a little bigger this time and pointed in my general direction. I looked down at the burrito and then back at him and growled.

"If you think you bad enough to take it, come try".

This went on for a few seconds, him pointing and grinning me grinning back and muttering under my breath that he should get his own. Before long all the guys in the truck were pointing and grinning. Of course Jill was in her element and was grinning and waving like teenage girl will do.

The cute guy in the passenger seat finally stopped grinning and pointed very deliberately this time, stabbing his finger in the air over and over. Finally I got it. I pulled my attention away from my beloved burrito and looked at the side if the car just an inch or so below the window.

There was a spider there that was, (no exaggeration) as big as my hand. I think it was what is referred to as a banana spider. I thought there was some big spiders in Texas, but we have spiders in our orange grove that claim entire TREES as their own personal property.

The thing must have jumped on the car from the foliage at the drive through window at TB. Needless to say, the burrito landed in my lap as I hastened to roll my window the rest of the way up, and you could hear the guffaws of laughter from the next truck as the light changed and they pulled away.

Here I was stuck in this vehicle with no way to exit without prompting a confrontation with this spider. I whipped into a car wash and motioned to one of the attendants. He of course had to go get all his buddies to come look at this massive spider while my daughter and I sat in the car feeling things crawling all over us.

They finally shooed it away with a broom and I swear to God I felt a thud when the thing hit the ground and raced into the bushes.

I never finished my burrito, I lost my appetite.

 

[cstocks]

I am sure you were intimidated by the size of the spider, but I doubt it had any interest in you. It just wanted a bite of your burrito! /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif Or, if it was THAT big, maybe it wanted the whole thing! /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

 

[RichZ]

Cindi, it sounds like you were a victim of the infamous Floridian Burrito Spider. As long as you give them what they want, they're harmless. /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

If I thought for one second that was the case I would have swung back thru TB and got him his own! lol!

 

[ges]

So now remember...everytime a "goodlooking, hunk of a guy, 20 years younger than you, winks" /forums/images/graemlins/cool.gif Look for a spider... /forums/images/graemlins/blush.gif....... /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

I KNOW! Talk about your nostalgic moments.

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Cindi, I truly hate to mention this: have you considered that the spider might have thought you looked good? Oh my!

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Yes...this is exactly why I left Florida. That and fire ants, as well as the roaches that come flying at you. (They call them "palmetto bugs" to soften the blow and make them sound more exotic!) /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bgott]

This sounds like a modern rendition of "Little Miss Muffet". /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Palmetto bugs are monsters. My birthday passed here not too long ago and the best gift I received was ‘nothing‘. As in, I was required to do exactly that all day. Nothing. I lounged about the house doing whatever I wanted to do, while the rest of the herd was out doing chores.

My girls were working in the grove. Around noon they came in for a nature break, and to get a drink. As girls tend to do, they both raced for the same bathroom at the same precise moment. Why they didn‘t each go to a different bathroom is beyond me. I guess it would be too much like civilized behavior.

I'm sitting at the computer and I hear this godawful screaming. At first I thought they were fighting, and was going to let them sort it out on their own, but when the noise didn’t go away, I sighed, got up, and went in there. The facts are as follows, the names have been omitted to protect the embarrassed.

"What on earth is going on in here?" I asked.

One of the girls is sitting on the...well, you know. The other is standing in the corner by the door, holding a folded up towel, and laughing her head off. The ’sitter’ has the plunger and she's holding it above her head, looking very much like a seated statue of liberty. The culprit is a palmetto bug on the wall above the medicine cabinet.

I have long since stopped trying to get rid of these bugs. All the bug spray in the world is useless against a species of bug that can hire heavy equipment and just break in where ever they want. The one thing about farm life that gets me is the insects. There is a never ending variety of these creepy crawlies.

The ‘stander’ has the idea to hit the bug with the towel, and the ‘sitter’ has the concern that the bug will not die, but will simply land on top of her, mad. Which is a very real fear, as these things are about as easy to kill as a rhinoceros.

So, I take the plunger, having to pry the ‘sitter’s’ fingers off of it as she still sees it as some type of protection, and bless her heart she can't get up and run, and I smack the bug, knocking it to the sink where it does it's little death dance and come back to computer.

"Pick that up!" I hear the sitter say, as I'm walking away "I don't want to look at it."

"Uh uh, you pick it up, it's your bug."

"How's it my bug?”

“ Mu-theeeeerrr!"

This is a fairly regular occurence. The sitter in this story literally has nightmares about palmetto bugs and sees them in every corner even when they are not there, and if there is one actually in the house she will be the first one to find it. Every time.