Two short spider tales

No, the spiders weren’t short, the tales are.

  First one, I was working on a car, trying to straighten out some damage under the fender when I felt a pinch or something on my arm. I thought I had just snagged it on something jagged under the fender, but a moment later I felt something and looked down to catch a glimpse of something scurrying away under the car. When I got my arm out from behind the fender I noticed a red swollen place on my forearm almost in the crease of my elbow. I put some creme and a bandaid on it, and other than the terrible itch, forgot it. I awoke sometime early the next morning with my arm on fire, and swollen to the point I couldn’t bend it. There were red lines radiating out from the site indicating blood poison or infection. the emergency room lanced it, put some foul smelling cream on it, and sent me home with antibiotics. It took several weeks of cleaning and treating it with the cream to clear it up, I still have a scar from it.

  2- Other one.  A spider took up residence in the window of my shop, he built a really cool web in the corner that went down into a funnel shape that he hid in. One of the guys that worked for me started catching bugs outside and feeding it, waterbugs, crickets, moths, and etc. We found out that some spiders will get as large as their environment allows- this guy was eating well- and got huge.  The fun wore off after about a month or so, and one day Larry comes in with a huge Praying Mantis, declaring that Ozzy(the spider) was about to meet his maker. The Mantis was at least five inches long, the spider was about the size of a silver dollar, and I felt like it was going to be a good fight. The Mantis would be handicapped a bit by the web, we thought. Larry threw the Mantis over on the web and Ozzy came flying out- only to back up and regroup. They sparred for about ten minutes, with Ozzy losing a leg early on, but he a few in reserve, and still managed to mess up that huge Mantis. Ozzy would run up and bite him before retreating, and as he did he would wrap a little more web around the hapless bug. It wasn’t long before the Mantis was cocooned and done for. An epic struggle. Ozzy lived comfortably for several months before disappearing one day, never to return.