The ash-tree (1931 ed.) by M.R. James

Short story for the Batlord. I first read it as a young boy and fell in love with it. Good one for Halloween.

Speaking of spiders, when I lived back east I built a rec room in a basement of the house I owned. The basement had a raised wooden floor that had been installed decades earlier. I needed to rip it out as part of the renovation.

Man, I encountered so many freaking spiders underneath that thing. All different sizes and types. The only good part of it all is that I'm not afraid of things any more. I never kill them if I find them in the house cause I think it's bad luck.

But then again, we don't have ones like in the OP around here - at least I've never seen one!

Btw, I stopped by that house I mentioned in an earlier post that my buddy abandoned because of the bug infestation. There was a guy and his wife doing yard work. I asked them if they still had a bug problem. He said that they had a severe problem when they moved in and for a couple of years afterward and thought seriously about moving. Then they got a letter from the city informing them that they would have to have city water piped in or face fines and court appearances, their house used well water. I remember that too, my buddy told me that it was on well water. So they called in some guys to do the renovation (they had to finance it, the city did nothing for them).

They guys had to pry up the floor in the bathroom which sat over the well. He said it looked like the catacombs under the castle in that Indiana Jones movie--every type of bug and arachnid was down in that well. They were floating in the water too. Those people and my buddy bathed in and drank that water!!! So many came up into the bathroom that they had to bring in an exterminator to hunt them all down. But that made sense too because I always remembered the infestation was worst in the bathroom and every time my buddy cleaned the bugs out of his house, it would start again in the bathroom first.

The guy said they shined a flashlight down there and the well walls were covered with spiders, beetles, centipedes (they were huge too!), silverfish and dozens and dozens of other bugs he could not identify and never knew even existed. They just sealed it over with concrete and wooden planks--sealing all the creepy-crawlies inside where they would eventually die because there was not other way out.

After that, no more bug problem. So if you're buying a house, it might be a good idea not to have well water.

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Coming into this thread is like licking a cold sore in your mouth. You know you shouldn't. You know it's just going to make things worse. But you just can't help yourself. Besides, I was called out by name.

My skin is crawling from looking at all these pictures of spiders!

I think they're cool, but they also freak the hell out of me.

Alone this summer, my fiance and I have killed at least fifty plus house spiders alone, ranging from the size of quarters, to nearly a small saucer plate!

Does the name of your country start with an "A" and end with "ustralia"?

It does start with an A, when shortened. But it isn't Australia.

America, actually. I don't think I could live in Australia, spiders look to be bigger there, not to mention a lot of your more deadly or poisonous spiders live in Australia. America has it's own deadly bunch too, but I tend to think Australia has the deadlier dozen.

The following article was in the news today:

Piotr Naskrecki was taking a nighttime walk in a rainforest in Guyana, when he heard rustling as if something were creeping underfoot. When he turned on his flashlight, he expected to see a small mammal, such as a possum or a rat.

"When I turned on the light, I couldn't quite understand what I was seeing," said Naskrecki, an entomologist and photographer at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology.

A moment later, he realized he was looking not at a brown, furry mammal, but an enormous, puppy-size spider.

PHOTOS: Fish-Eating Spiders Found Around the World
Known as the South American Goliath birdeater (Theraphosa blondi), the colossal arachnid is the world's largest spider, according to Guinness World Records. Its leg span can reach up to a foot (30 centimeters), or about the size of "a child's forearm," with a body the size of "a large fist," Naskrecki told Live Science. And the spider can weigh more than 6 oz. (170 grams) — about as much as a young puppy, the scientist wrote on his blog. [See Photos of the Goliath Birdeater Spider]

Some sources say the giant huntsman spider, which has a larger leg span, is bigger than the birdeater. But the huntsman is much more delicate than the hefty birdeater — comparing the two would be "like comparing a giraffe to an elephant," Naskrecki said.

The birdeater's enormous size is evident from the sounds it makes. "Its feet have hardened tips and claws that produce a very distinct, clicking sound, not unlike that of a horse's hooves hitting the ground," he wrote, but "not as loud."

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Supposedly has fangs 2 inches long! While a bite wouldn't be fatal it would certainly hurt like a bastard. So, Batlord, if you're through s-hitting your pants, you can start s-hitting them again.

Puppy-Sized Spider Romps in Rainforest : Discovery News

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Big Spider Attacks Daddy - YouTube

I don't give a **** how endangered that thing might be. If I go to South America, I'm bringing a gun---well, I'm buying a gun when I get there so that I don't get put on a terrorist watch list---and if I see that thing, I'm emptying a clip into it.