Ringing in the New Year

It's now officially 2010, so this morning I thought to myself, "Self, what better way to ring in the New Year than with a recap of all of the heretofore unposted photos of horrible, dinner-plate sized spiders that you've found in the house in the last three weeks?"

I don't know what the hell is happening lately (maybe the sunny-one-day-rainy-the-next weather is driving the little buggers indoors), but we've had a veritable spider infestation in the last month or so. Well, OK - it was just three, but they were each big enough to count as at least 10 regular spiders in my mind. Oh, and I have to apologize for the poor quality of these photos. When you're dealing with eight-legged freaks the size of hubcaps, you don't pause to get the lighting or focus right.

Arachnid #1

This fine fellow was discovered on the inside of our screen door. I have no idea what kind it is, and frankly, I'm not sure that I WANT to know. If it can kill me in under thirty seconds, please don't tell me. Ignorance is bliss. I can tell you that it was bigger than the handle on the door. And that's never a good thing.

Arachnid #2

Notice the envelope held up for scale. It was right above my bedroom door. I'm convinced it was just waiting for me to walk under so it could drop on my head. I think I may have contributed some new words to the English language when I saw this one.

Arachnid #3

I'm sure you're all terribly disappointed that there isn't a photo to accompany this. It was hanging out in our bedroom above the window, and I'll need you to trust me when I say that it was significantly larger than either of the other two. When I first saw it, I let out a bloodcurdling shriek that brought Ben running from another room. When he realized the fuss was about a spider, he rolled his eyes and told me not to scream like that because he thought there must have been something really wrong. Are you effing kidding me? There WAS something really wrong! There was a spider. In my bedroom. That was bigger than my hand. I could have saddled the goddamn thing and ridden it around our yard. If that's not grounds for screaming, then I don't know what is. Right? Right.

Happy New Year, folks!

P.S. A couple days after Arachnid #3 showed had been disposed of, Ben casually informed me that after he'd flattened it, he'd flushed the thing down the toilet like a goldfish. Great. So now the toilet snakes are being fed. I suppose I'm just lucky that it didn't clog the loo.