Funny Story.

When I was 21 I lived in Ocala Florida one winter to do the Hits circuit there with Hugh Graham. KingRidge has a farm about 10 minutes from the show grounds so the staff had a house there.

Being from Ontario where the biggest spiders I ever see here are mostly the ones in the shavings bags pile (you know "house spiders" the fast ones that make webs in corners - these ones -
http://images.google.ca/i...6hl%3Den%26tbs%3Disch:1)

You can imagine that some of the spiders in Florida were life threatening tarantulas to me...

So, Im in my room one morning getting up for work. Bleary eyed and sleepy I reach for my doorknob. Whicj has a GIANT hairy spider on it. The spider was large enough that it's body covered the doorknob and it's legs wrapped around the knob and touched the wooden door. Disgusting. I Freaked the hell out.

I was literally trapped in my own bedroom.

I wasn't about to try to kill something that big unless I had a BB gun... or some insect spray that shoots like 10 feet.

I analyzed the situation carefully... if I called for help and someone opened the door, it could fall on the floor and crawl under the bed or the dresser - or worse, it would leap onto my face. (The bedroom has a shag carpet which also contributed to not wanting it to make it to the floor)

I called my dad. At home in Ontario, at 6:30 am. Hysterical, I explained that I was trapped in my room by a spider. He asked me what exactly I thought he should do about it from there?

I called my boss (Hugh) who laughed at me. And said figure it out and get down to the barn. Why do people not understand that it is a legitimate phobia. It's like asking someone to jump off a cliff who is terrified of heights.

Then it moved. Very very quickly, off the doorknob across the back of the door and onto the wall. I could now get out my room. BUT there was no way in hell I was leaving it there all day to make babies and invite other spider friends into my bed. I had to do something.

I spent about 10 minutes (literally) debating if I could manage to run past the spider on the wall and out the now open door without it jumping on me as I ran past...

I did.

I went to the kitchen assuming that under the sink would be some raid or some other approproately potent chemical spray that I could hopefully use to kill said beast. (Im all for setting them free but there is no way in hell I was killing it with something that required me being connected in any way to the spider itself.. not even a golf club or a broom)

There was nothing but an aerosol can of lysol. Luckily it was full. I grabbed that.

I went back to the room, where I carefully peered in to make sure said spider wsa still on the wall. he wasn't. Oh Shit.

I saw a flash and just as I looked to my left, the giant son of a bitch was crawling down the wall behind my dresser.

I pulled the dresser out and he was gone... racing across the shag carpet towards my foot. I positioned my lysol can and sprayed.... spidey moved even faster towards my bed... oh shit... and there is now a line of foamy lysol across the carpet. The spider isn't fazed.

Now I have to pull the bed out from the wall. Spider is gone. Disappeared into the shag carpet... AH no there you are you little bastard, crawling up the wall behind the bed... lysol to the wall, spidey falls off and races across the carpet back under the bed. I hop onto the bed and wait for him to come out the other side (no luck...)

I am now trying to move the bed back against the wall in hopes that spider will come out the other side... try to move a bed, while you are sitting on it... I would hop up in the air and as I hopped I would try to push the bed against the wall... no luck. I had to put my feet on the ground...

As soon as I step down, out comes the spider again... a little slower now but still quick enough. I pull the lysol out again and chase him across the carpet. Finally he stops running, and is now drowning in the lysol... I felt really bad that I couldn't make it quick for him, but it really is an irrational fear.

Once he was drowned, I then had to figure out how to get the body out... and put the furniture back.

I called down to the barn to tell them I was on my way (I was over an hour late by this point) and asked if someone would come up and get me on the golf cart.

Knowing that it would be Samuel, the mexican stall mucker, who came to get me... I knew I could ask him to get rid of the body for me.

He came in and I asked him to get rid of it... he grabbed a tissue and picked it up like it was nothing... gross... I dont care that it's dead it's still a spider.

Then he helped me put the furniture back and clean the lysol out of the carpet and off the wall...

I still get teased about being trapped in my room by a spider.

Sattolite - 1999 TB Gelding by "Our Emblem"

ClunyCapull wrote: "Her seat is so . . quiet. This is how I ride in my head." 

  ETA- This was in regards to Elizabeth's mom, not me. For the record...  

Shiggins wrote: "Front wheel drive hahaha. The first time I rode Bob I thought I might slip down his neck like a slide it was like working on a constant slope, but he came around and began working quite uphill once things came together. All wheel drive can evolve! "