28 February 2025
Last week, I hopped out of the shower, singing at the top of my lungs the silly songs I sing when I'm in the silly song mood.
I dried myself as you do and put on some duds, still singing my silly songs; as I headed out of the bedroom and down the hall, just then, I heard my wife screaming my name from the other end of the house.
I had images come into my head of one of my girls covered in blood due to some unforeseen event, so I ran down the hall. I could see Liz and Grace at the end of Grace's bed in Grace's room.
I could see they were freaked out but unhurt, then Liz yelled 'SPIDER'; at this point, I got angry, a goddamn spider, and I'm run down the hall where I could have came a gutsa, and at my age with my weight, this would be cause for a hip replacement.
I walked into the room with a scowl on my face, where upon I saw my wife shift her eyes from me to the space above the open door, I turned my head and without thinking, instantly recoiled.
It was the most enormous fucking huntsman spider I had ever seen, and I've seen big huntsmans; it had the body of a mouse, and eight muscular legs; I'm not one to exhibit arachnophobic tendencies, but this fucker was in high def, and my cortisol levels instantly shot up to the level of my wife's.
I moved out of the doorway and told Liz I'd handle it; I went to the Tupperware cupboard to find a suitable container and a lid, something big. This could have been a long process because, generally, finding a lid to fit a particular container in this cupboard was a process, and I was definitely going to need a lid. Still, I found a container with a lid shortly after rummaging around.
Liz would note later that she was surprised to see me back so quickly from the Tupperware cupboard.
Now the scary part; getting this big motherfucker into the container.
I slowly lifted the container over my shoulders. I hovered over the spider, expecting it to jump on my fat face, where it would probably lay eggs in my mouth, but it stayed in place, so I jammed the container up against the wall, making sure not to pinch off a leg or two; the spider took off at lightning speed inside, the fucker could move, but this was to my advantage as I was now able to slip the lid in between the container and the wall and trap the massive mumma.
Liz was pleading that I kill it with fire. Still, I knew better than to mess with the spider Gods.
I went out the back in my jocks and over to our big high colorbond fence, opened the lid, and in the same action tipped it over the fence where I banged the container on the top so the fucker would fall out without crawling around and landing on my face and laying its eggs in my mouth.
We have massive gum trees at the side of our house between the footpath and the road; I'd say that's where it came from; we had heavy rain that night, and it would have come inside for shelter or looking for human flesh.
We were all on edge for the rest of the evening, but we were having a good laugh too; all three of us were making jokes about the fact it was still out there and that there was probably an egg sack somewhere in the house full of thousands of its babies, we considered setting the house on fire and moving back to Furlong st where there was only ever respectable normal size spiders.
As is the routine, I checked the house to see if she had any partners, friends, or giant egg sacks behind doors.
I did some research as to what type of huntsman it was and came across a picture of a big mumma with muscular legs and the body of a mouse, a 'giant huntsman', but it turned out to be a variety not found in Australia; I found two Australian species though, the banded huntsman and the giant grey huntsman which can have leg spans up to 20-25cm.
That night, I slept in Grace's room, where the giant arachnid was, while the girls slept in the main bedroom. I think I've developed a mild form of arachnophobia, which is a common sense, intelligent, and necessary response to living in a house where somehow giant fucking spiders can get into my daughter's bedroom.