Wednesday, January 24, 2007

"What the F*ck" Wednesday? -- Scared Sh*tless







I wouldn't say I am a fearless woman, but I'm no scaredy-cat either. However, TWICE this week, I have been scared to the point of near heart attack. I mean it. Both times my heart was beating so fast that I had to clutch my chest to keep it from escaping. (The last time that happened was when I met Troy Aikman back in the 1990's!)

Today, I was just standing in my kitchen opening a can of Coke, when I heard a gunshot. I totally understand what people mean when they say they almost jumped out of their skin. The noise was so loud that my dog ran out of the room, tail between his legs. But it wasn't a gunshot, it was the Coke can I just opened! WTF? Has anyone had this happen before? And the crazy part was that the actual coke didn't explode or spill. That can must have had an extra burst of CO2 or something.

So, my second heart-stopping experience was in the garage. I was taking out the trash and noticed a piece of paper on the floor. I bent over to pick it up, and a spider similar to the one below was hiding underneath. I am so scared of spiders, and this one was huge (the size of my palm) and hairy and two inches away from my hand. I screamed bloody murder and did the little scared girl dance. The husband came running out and promptly killed the monster with a hammer. I felt a little bad once he bludgeoned to death, but he shouldn't have wandered into my garage and scared the crap out of me. Maybe that will be a lesson for all the other huge spiders who were contemplating entering my domain.




P.S. WTF is up with Blogger spell check? It didn't recognize "Aikman" and gave me the choices of Airman, Oilman, Hickman, Aiken and Amman. WHA??? You know Aiken, but not Aikman? Ugh.

15 comments:

Super Happy Girl said...

I had to google Troy Aikman, once I saw him, I'm like "aaah!".

Your husband killed the monster with a hammer?, wow! Take that spider, you got obliterated!.

I love coke, it's pretty much the only pop I drink, Sound slike you got a lot of POP on yours...
Thank you, thank you very much, I'll be here all week.

omar said...

I'm a frequent complainer about winter. I hate to be cold, and I'm not a fan of driving in snow (though I'm used to it). People occasionally ask me, "why don't you move down south?"

That dude in the picture? THAT'S why I don't move down south.

KB said...

OMG! That is one heck of a spider. You should commend yourself on not passing out. I'm pretty my response would have been a dead drop to the floor, right next to the spider....

Also, you should not feel bad about its being obliterated with a hammer. He was NOT invited in to the garage. That's my rule, whatever you are, if you're in my house without an invitation, you're dead.

Kuma and Yo70pAm said...

Dang tarantulas!

Love reading your WTF posts. When I was in the Marines, my favorite saying was WTFO (WTF Over?) Don't know if there is a radio station with the same letters. Let's hope not!

Elizabeth-W said...

How about a what the F shout out to blogger not letting me post yesterday about tires?! Because I reallllly wanted to tell you how much I hate spending money on all car-y things, and things like Sears repairment who are in my house less than ten minutes and charge me 150$?
But I digress....I've never had that happen to be with any kind of can, and that would scare the water out of me, too.
My children freak about all little buggy creatures but then look at me like I'm an axe murderer when I dispose of said creatures. Ya can't win.

Anonymous said...

Holy cow! I don't recall ever seeing a spider quite that big anywhere in Texas and truthfully I hope I can live the rest of my life here without seeing one.

I do occasionally see roaches that are big enough steal food from the fridge. And when I was very young and living in Central Texas, there was a plethora of scorpions... many of which would be on the wall next to my bed when I woke up. Needless to say, my bed was never pushed too close to the wall and all the covers would be off the ground in case they decided to climb up those too!

Elizabeth-W said...

Carol, when I was 10 we moved from Houston to New Mexico. One night I went to bed and was reading. I was about to turn off the light and happened to notice on the ceiling a scorpion. How can you sleep knowing it is getting ready to fall on your head? My dad was out of town, and I had to make my mom get the ladder, and I handed the vacuum up to her on it, and she used the long skinny tube-y thing to suck it off the ceiling. ((Shudder)) Did you ever see a vineagaroon?

sillychick said...

So, let me start by saying that as I was reading your post and I saw that you actually met Troy Aikman (the father of my once pretend children) I was insanely jealous.

But...did you have to go and tell me about that spider? I mean, seriously! Gah! That's just wrong to ruin a good fantasy like that.

Sketchy said...

Oh ick!!! I think I would have been content to envision a much smaller variety of spider...creepy crawlies!!

So openning a can of coke gives one the same impression of meeting Troy Aikman? Hmmmm I see coke's sales doubling...

Queen of the Mayhem said...

I am traumatized just from looking at that picture of the spider! EEK! I had a similar run in with a possum. It was dark outside and I bent over to pet (oh,yes....I said PET) what I thought was my cat. Well, it was NOT my cat but a disgusting, disease ridden possum. Of course, I did not realize this until my hand (and face) were mere centimeters from its back! Talk about screaming like a girl! Hope next week is better!

Anonymous said...

Elizabeth, I've never seen a vineagaroon but after seeing a picture, I'm kinda happy about that!

Rhonda, Thanks so much for the picture of the spider and reminding me of my own scorpion fears. I had a nightmare that night about tarantulas and unnaturally large scorpions.

Super Happy Girl said...

So last night I see this spiders and I called (half screamed more likely) for my son to come rescue me. He tell me "mom, it's just a little spider...it's not like you saw a tarantula or something".

I'm with omar. If I ever see one of those out IRL, I'd just faint.

elasticwaistbandlady said...

The kids at Homeschool Camp found two tarantulas and they kept one in a glass aquarium and passed it around to pet. Maybe the stereotypes about "weird" homeschoolers are all right on the money. You should have retrieved the squished spider carcass and dangled it on a string outside your garage as a warning to any other would-be spider invaders.

I opened a can of refried beans, (La Costena brand) and it emitted a terrifyingly loud pop. I was getting traumatic flashbacks to my days in the great Pop Rock Candy/Sprite battle of 1986. They had definitely gone bad. Rancid. Beans that were not "magical fruit" and eating them would have done more than make me just toot. I quite possibly saved my entire family from dying an agonizing botulism death. Go me! I'm a new superhero for modern times. Protecting the innocent from villainous beans.

dalene said...

Ewwww! Those kind get really sqishy and gooey when you bludgeon them.

I had a similar spider experience. We lived in a basement and one night after dark I was entering through the long dark narrow stairwell and I turned around and found myself face-to-face with one of those buggers. It was literally right in front of my face and was as big as my hand. Creeped me out big time, but we caught it and put it in my husband's bug collection. Third-graders love that type of thing!

Rhonda Sloan said...

NCS - "AHHH" is right, baby! :)

Omar - I have lived here for 36 years and never seen a spider that big. Someone told me it was probably a pet that escaped. Now I feel really bad.

Yamaman - Bet it would be a station worth listening to though!

Sillychick - I posted a photo just for you.

Sketchy - Yes. :)

Queen - That's hysterical! Sweet little possum.