Distractions

We're going to an ultrasound tomorrow. The ultrasound. The big one. The one where we find out if we're having girls or boys. This is better than Christmas. It's better than Disneyland! I may not sleep tonight...I really, really need to find something to distract myself with.

And so, in the grand tradition of this blog, I thought I'd do that by telling you all a little spider story or two (that's right, you heard me ljkc - spiders are a-comin'!).

A couple of days ago, I was tidying up a section of the loans desk at work when a spider suddenly jumped out at me from between some pieces of paper. I screamed at the top of my lungs, then bolted for my supervisor, begging her to come out and kill the evil arachnid. “What kind is it?” she asked idly. I stared at her for a moment, then shrieked, “Well, I didn’t stop to ask it's name!”And then two days ago, as I was cheerfully lifting books out of a bag, there was another one – the same kind as before, but much larger. I think I may have actually crossed the room without touching the floor.

The funny thing is that before I came here, I was never frightened of spiders. I’d often even pick them up and gently transport them outside the house so they could continue their good work of killing obnoxious insects. But the spiders here…they’re different.

Some are huge and hairy like the huntsman, and although they’re not my favourite, I’ll tolerate their (largely unthreatening) presence as they’re excellent hunters. Even if they do get in my windows. But the others…some, like the redback, are shiny, bulbous, and capable of killing a child with neurotoxic venom. Another is the notoriously aggressive Sydney funnel-web, which can bite through a shoe and are among the most dangerous spiders in the world. Or the golden orb weaver, which is gets snapped doing things like this:

I’ve posted this photo before, but it bears another look. Because that is a spider. EATING A $#&@%*! BIRD.

The ones I found in the desk and in my book bag aren’t deadly, but because white-tailed spiders roam instead of spinning webs, they’re certainly more likely to startle you by springing out of unexpected places. Although they’ve been falsely accused of causing necrosis, a bite on the hand and can still make your forearm swell up…unpleasant, to say the least, and still worthy of death by total squishification in my book.

Whew. There. I think I managed to sufficiently distract myself from our ultrasound tomorrow. Or maybe not. Only 16 hours, 20 minutes to go...

P.S. Clicky to vote in the Oz Bebbehs gender poll if you missed it!