[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: spider story

[Shaun Hately]

My spider story... well, two.

When I was five, I came downstairs to the lounge where my father was lying 
asleep on a couch. Just above his head was a Sydney Funnel Web spider. This is 
one of the most deadly spiders on Earth, and it is very nasty looking. I screamed.

Dad woke up and leapt up - somehow acquring the spider on his head as he did 
so - I knew it was on his head. He doesn't. He's facing his five year old son who is 
screaming like a banshee for no explainable reason. He starts to run towards me. 
In sheer and absolute terror on two levels - one that the spider might eat me (it 
wasn't that big, but I was five) and two that it might eat my father, I bolted, still 
screaming.

My baffled father is chasing me up the stairs as I'm screaming in terror for no 
reason he can understand and the whole time this spider is just sitting there on 
his head. I managed to reach the bathroom about a step ahead of him and shut 
the door.

"What's wrong! What's wrong!"

*Incoherent wails*

"Come on, what's wrong?!?"

finally: "SPIDER!"

"There's a spider? Well, open the door and I'll squash it!"

"On head!!!"

"On your head... there's a spider on your head............... Oh..."

*EXPLOSION OF SWEARING. Heavy breathing.*

"Spider's dead."

Second story - much tamer, much more long lasting. About ten years ago, I was 
bitten on the toe by a white tailed spider, which is one of those necrotising ones. 
My toe is still infected by what it did - every couple of weeks it swells up to twice 
normal size, and because radically painful. It also looks horrible - the only way 
they can deal with it for certain is amputation - fortunately only of the big toe. For 
some reason, the infection doesn't spread so we've left it for the moment - I'd 
really like to keep my toe. And a couple of times we've come pretty close to 
beating the infection.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia