kathyM I found one of the female wolf spiders your refferring to. I was using the bathroom and felt something tickling the top of my foot. I kicked and looked down and there was a wolf spider a little smaller than the size of my palm (I'd say 2.5-3" from legtip to leg tip not stretched) I caught the little thing in a jar and she is now living happily in a spare (cracked) five gallon I had lying around. I love her to death. She ate a cricket the night I caught her. It was great fun watching her carry it around and chew on it for hours...strange thing is I've had her for well over a month now and I've yet to find any cricket corpses or feces of any sort...
Argh! You see, I bet you're dead proud of her (and quite right too, it's me with the phobia) but that fills me with terror that. 'Specially the cracked tank issue. Yes, common sense dictates she's not going to escape and murder anyone in their sleep, but rationality goes out of the window when I see one of them big beggars.
It's also a common myth that "they're more frightened of you than you are of them" (one of my Mum's favourite guilt trips for me). The two recent closest encounters I've had with those spiders, they've acted very aggressively even with other options. One ran right at me from under the TV cabinet when Baz's chair was nearer and safer. I squished it with a video (sad but has to happen here). Now the term for killing a spider in this house is "Brockovich the b*stard" - think you can guess which vid I used. This is how scared I am of them though - instead of cleaning said video and putting it back in the collection, I had one of the kids chuck it directly into the wheely bin.
2nd attack from a dangerous and aggressive spider was when I was watching Pitch Black a few months back. In less than a minute I went from "Ooooo Riddick" to "Argh get this bloody thing off me!!!". Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something move on my lap (light was off, only light from telly). I thought it was the light from the telly panning round, cos the film's full of that. Brushed my lap, heard something click on the laminate floor. It was a fair click so I assumed it was a lighter. Got up, turned the light on, nothing. Sat back down on the sofa and was in the process of saying "Aren't I brave, I thought it was a spider, silly me, but I didn't panic, did you see that?" when a 3.5"+ Linford Christie spider hurled itself at me across the sofa. I leapt up, got Baz to come and kill it, and when he got his big boot to squish it, it ran AT him.
So sod the "They're more frightened of you" malarkey, it's just not true. I think they know an arachnophobe from 100 yards and decide to torment us. They must die.
