I was Stumbling through the Internet and tripped upon a series of photos so horrific I must show them here, to freak people out as much as I'm freaked. I've seen these pics before, but I wandered across them again and will probably have nightmares because of them.

Allow me to preface this by saying that I HATE BUGS. I include spiders in the category. I'm not a female typically given to the screaming meemies very often, but bugs will do it to me almost every time. Oh, not every bug; I really like lightning bugs, and lady bugs, and even itty bitty sugar ants are pretty inoffensive.

It's the "icky" bugs I don't like. Anything that stings, bites, pinches...those are the ones I don't like. Well, honey bees are OK. Everything else is out.

I think this all stems from a traumatic incident from my childhood. We lived in northern Arizona, in a pretty rural area. Not too far from our house was a cow field and pond where we would all play. One evening my brother came home from an afternoon of playing with his friends in the field. My brother went and showered, leaving his clothes hanging in the bathroom. A little while later I went into the bathroom. As I walked through the doorway, I thought I saw a big piece of fat rusty-colored yarn laying along the wall. I didn't really notice it again until I went to walk OUT of the bathroom, and noticed the yarn was WALKING TOWARDS ME. This is what it was:



This had apparently been ON my brother's clothing, and had dropped to the floor while he was showering. Let me say that again: it was ON MY BROTHER. Oh dear God.

Needless to say, there was some screaming and leaping into the sink. My brother came running, but he was barefoot. My mom ran to the rescue, but she had sandals on. My dad came in, and when he stepped on the centipede it stuck out from under the front and back of his foot. That might give you an idea of how long the bug was. The horror.

Even worse is the fact that the monster centipede was not alone. At the same time I was sitting in our bathroom sink and screaming, my brother's best friend was sitting at the dinner table at his home when suddenly his mother went crazy, slapping at him and dragging from his chair. She opened the back door and tossed him out, smacking at him frantically. It wasn't until then that they realized she was slapping at the humongous centipede that was crawling up over his shoulder. Let me say that again: it was crawling up OVER HIS SHOULDER. I want to scream just thinking about it.

Anyway, ever since then, I have hated bugs. Really the more legs, the less I like it. So spiders are pretty high on the list of yuckiness.

So imagine my emotions upon seeing this series of photos:







Oh sweet Jesus. I cannot even IMAGINE how I would feel if I came home and saw those legs sticking out from beneath my clock. Heck, I'm looking at my clock now every few minutes just to make sure those legs AREN'T hanging out.

Supposedly this is a huntsman spider, and it's pretty common in places like New Zealand and Australia. All the more reason for me to NEVER go there.

The only entertaining part about these pictures is one of the comments left on the website where I found the photos. It reads, "I woulda removed the clock.. not by taking it off the wall, but by setting my house on fire and never living anywhere near that location ever ever again." I think that's about right. I don't want to live anywhere that has big f*%&$^# spiders like that. It's bad enough I live in the South, where all the bugs bite, sting, and pinch anyway.

OK, I'm headed to bed. May as well take some NyQuil to try and stave off the nightmares. Urk.