The Spider That Tried to Kill Us

To quote The Office: “That’s what she said.”

No, seriously, this was a truly HUGE spider. I was sitting at the coffee table looking at e-mail Sunday morning when I hear a very loud, insistent, “Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh! Oh my gosh!!!!!!” I looked over at her, as any wonderful husband does when his wife begins to freak out without any husbandic action (new word – use it, love it, spread it). I saw her eyes fixed at the top of the wall above our breakfast bar and saw the biggest spider I had ever seen outside a plexiglass box at an animal attraction.

I dutifully watched it as she got the flyswatter, because I sure as heck wasn’t going to be able to get this thing taken care of with a napkin. It was as big as her hand with its legs spread out. I had to get the barstool close enough that I could get a shot in without sending it scampering behind the hutch. My aim was true, and bits of legs went flying and it didn’t move again.

Here’s a photo journal of the event, with the last photo being my iPhone for scale (note that its remaining legs are pulled way in).

PS – Sorry about the huge file sizes, but I’m testing out the gallery feature’s meta data and didn’t want to lose the camera info.