Sticking with hubby's side of the family to start with, my gorgeous father in law told me the story about how once when he was working night shift at Heinz in Melbourne, he got in his car to drive home and the sun was just rising and was very bright in his eyes. So he popped the sun visor down, to be greeted by the biggest and hairiest huntsman spider he had ever seen!!! It slid down onto the seat between his legs, so rather than stop he just drove on home without sitting on the seat!! True story. Apparently when he got home he just couldn't find that spider anywhere!
Which brings me to a story from my Dad's side of the family. His Aunty Min (another beautiful person I had in my life) once put on her woollen dressing gown and walked around for quite a while with a scratchy armpit. She kept thinking it was just a piece of thread, and eventually took off the dressing gown to find a nice huntsman spider nestled there.
My mother has an unreasonable fear (well it might even be a phobia!!) about spiders. I remember one night leaving my Grandma's place at night and my brother (always the prankster) cried out 'look out Mum, there's a spider above your head'. Mum, who I think was carrying something at the time, threw her arm up and nearly took my Dad's (or was it my step-dad's) head off.
My middle daughter A (and my eldest daughter C too actually) share my mother's fear. I remember visiting my daughter A up in Port Hedland. I found an amazing amount of dead spider's covered in what looked like a can of fly-spray for each of them, they were white with the stuff. She still kills them that way!!
Daughter C and I were once driving down the freeway, she was driving, and a huge huntsman crawled up the windscreen. My daughter nearly jumped out of the door, seriously I thought she was going to. She pulled over to the emergency stopping lane, shaking and crying until I convinced her that the spider couldn't get inside (we closed all the vents and windows to be sure) and eventually she calmed down and we drove on to our destination. Again we never found the spider.
Then there was the time, A and I drove to Gosnells in my car, with her daughter C, just a baby asleep in the car seat in the back. When we arrived and I opened the back door to get C out, there was a huntsman in the door well. Gave both of a us a little bit of a shock, even me, who is okay with spiders as long as they stay away from my body (I can look at them without any issue, but don't like the thought of them on me). We got baby C out and then managed to knock the spider out with a stick.
Which brings me to two red-back spider stories, both which involve me. The first was when I was heavily pregnant with my first child. At that time my step-father was a part time student at the University of WA. Mum and I popped down there to pick him up one afternoon and got there a little early. We went to sit down on a garden seat, my bottom was almost on the seat when my mother grabbed my arm and launched me across the garden. In shock I looked at her with a 'What The' look on my face. She just pointed to the red-back web (with red-back) that I almost sat on! Somehow she saw it there.
Then there was the time when I was pregnant with my third child and we were visiting Mum's and I was sitting on a stool in her kitchen, when a red-back crawled up my leg. Mum, even with her phobia, calmly swatted it off my leg before she stepped on it. Mother's can overcome even their biggest fears if there children are at risk.
Now I went searching for huntsman and red-back spider images and decided I wouldn't use any, cause even I got a little freaked when they all came up on Google - lol.
Thanks for popping by xxxx
