Spiders (and Snakes)

You know what I don't like about spiders?

Ummm...that they're SPIDERS.

Creepy, crawly, leggy, webby, bitey.

I don't like them.

And I know that God made all the creatures and I know He said, "it is good," and I believe Him. I believe that HE thought it was all good, and I believe everyONE and everyTHING has a purpose, but I've got a few questions:

Wasps. Really?

We moved here 2 years ago, and this town seems to have two things like none other: FLIES...and SPIDERS. And this must be pregnant-spider season, because a lot of the spiders we see are HUUUUUGE. And if you try to smash the huge spiders, a million spidey-babies will come running out of the momma's body and it is gross beyond gross.

All I can think of is the episode on Friends where a rat in Phoebe's apartment has babies and she keeps them in a shoe box after the mom gets killed in a trap. And, later, she looks in the box and one baby is missing, and then Monica runs out of her bedroom yelling, "rat baby, rat baby, rat baby..."

My husband does not have the same irrational healthy fear of spiders that the rest of us do. He doesn't make sure the last thing he does at night is to pull the sheet up TIGHT around his mouth, and then convince himself that it stays like that all night long.

What?

It's just that my friend, Paula Hill, told me years and years ago...that every person swallows, ON AVERAGE, 7 spiders a year. She read it somewhere.

SEVEN.

SEVEN SPIDERS.

ON AVERAGE.

WE SWALLOW THEM.

WE SWALLOW SEVEN SPIDERS EVERY YEAR, ON AVERAGE.

I can't even...

Jim even went so far as to PULL UP SOME PICTURES OF SPIDERS ON HIS i-PHONE and brought them in to show me. He said, "see? THIS is a wolf spider...they're GOOD. We NEED them."

Ummm...no we don't.

The only "good" spider is a dead spider. That's my opinion.

That's also my opinion when it comes to snakes.

And Jim has given me the whole "red-on-black, friend-of-Jack," "red-on-yellow, kill-a-fellow," speech, but I think we all know that IF I could even remember that little rhyme, I'd probably already be dead because of all the time it would take me to look closely at the snake to try to figure out it's color pattern.

And plus...all the screaming.

And, I'm not "Jack," and I tend to wonder about people who have friends who are SNAKES.

Seriously, Jim. Are you new here?

"Then God said, "let the earth produce living creatures according to their kinds..." Genesis 1:24