1VaBlue1

February 25th, 2021 at 8:42 AM ^

Man up* - it's a bug for which you have ~6 feet of height and ~200 pounds of advantage**.  You can kill it with the press of a finger, but it will not kill you - though it might make you consider death as a remedy to its bite.  Chances of encountering one are actually pretty slim - they already live wherever you are, and you haven't encountered them yet.  So put your big boy pants*** on and continue with your day.

(* - Disregard this if you are, in fact, female - in which case you are allowed to freak out****.)

(** - These are approximate sizes, insert your actual size here)

(*** - See * above.)

(**** - I say this an an, ahem, older gentleman conditioned by my societal surroundings to allow females some leniency of 'freak out' for things like spiders.  I do realize this is not always the case.)

Joined: 01/31/2016

MGoPoints: 127087

docraider

February 24th, 2021 at 10:41 PM ^

They infict a painful bite and cause necrotizing of flesh.  If you look up recluse spider bites it would make you not sleep at night.  They are not native to Michigan but range up into Ohio. 

Joined: 07/03/2008

MGoPoints: 189

Rico

February 24th, 2021 at 11:58 PM ^

Centipedes too. Gross. I used to occasionally see some 3+ inch long ones at my middle school. I remember when the science teacher got the ol' inflatable planetarium out of the storage room and set it up in the gym one day. The boys in class went first while the girls waited outside of it for their turn. Half a class period later we switched spots and then while us guys were hanging around on the court waiting we saw the absolute biggest one I have ever seen come crawling out from under the bleachers and make a beeline straight toward - and into - the doorway of the starlab, much to our juvenile amusement. We eagerly waited for the alien invader to interrupt our unsuspecting peers' tour of the Milky Way, and sure enough after a few minutes there was a loud shriek, "AHH, MOUSE!". Sheer chaos broke out within that vinyl dome of darkness, as a dozen preteen girls scrambled to locate the tiny lone exit as quickly as possible. After their safe evacuation, us boys explained to them and our teacher that it was in fact not a mouse but rather a giant centipede, but they refused to believe us.

Joined: 03/06/2017

MGoPoints: 4466

zapata

February 25th, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^

I lived outside of Santa Fe, NM in an old Spanish adobe hacienda for a couple years. The interior ceilings were beams of wood with straw in between for insulation. There were centipedes, but not the soft little guys I've seen in the East - these were 5-6" long with stinging tails and when they fell out of the rafters, which happened pretty frequently, you could hear them clattering across the floor.  We'd try to kill them with the broom handle, and they'd grab onto it with their front grabby things and curl their tail up and sting it. They were hard to kill.

One night, while my soon-to-be mother-in-law was visiting and sleeping within earshot, one fell out of the ceiling onto the bed where my girl and I were sleeping. The next morning, the mom-in-law said "what was going on in your bed last night? I heard Chrissy shouting 'it's so big, and it won't die!'" She had a sense of humor, that now ex-mom-in-law.

Joined: 03/10/2010

MGoPoints: 1094

HateSparty

February 25th, 2021 at 5:48 AM ^

On a vacation to Arizona a few years back, my youngest who was around four came out of the restroom of the hotel room carrying a scorpion he found in there. Never harmed him as I coaxed him to put it down. I then horrified him by smashing it to death in primal fear. 

We had a few days left but we moved to a different resort for the final few days. My wife couldn’t stay there. Explaining that they can likely be found everywhere was fruitless. My son still remembers me killing that thing. I’m sure it was my craze that scared him most.

 

Joined: 12/17/2014

MGoPoints: 27141

pdgoblue25

February 25th, 2021 at 6:18 AM ^

My wife and I bought a house a little farther out in the country because we wanted some land, and the school system is great.

The 3rd day after we moved in I saw a wolf spider for the first time in my life, it disappeared under the washing machine. 

I dumped half a bottle of ortho under there, and considered burning the house down. 

Joined: 03/03/2010

MGoPoints: 18972

pkatz

February 25th, 2021 at 9:50 AM ^

Lived in NC after graduating Ross - had a great house in a small town between Winston Salem and Greensboro. Younger brother and his wife came to visit, and while I was hanging with said brother in the guest room, I noticed a very large wolf spider crawling on the wall over his head. Without calling attention to the spider, I had my brother leave the room while I proceeded to bash the spider with a baseball bat.

Nope, nope, nope... still having nightmares 20 years later.

Joined: 01/22/2010

MGoPoints: 43311