HALP!

[Mrs Scratchitt]

I've just started my day at work and have noticed there's a spider on the ceiling so big it could crouch over the Olympic cauldron. It could walk forward and then descend on a silk strand onto my head.

I can't reach it, don't think it deserves to die, and have doubts over the wisdom of chasing it away so that it goes behind the filing unit so that I don't know where it is.

Please do something to distract me.

God, it's massive.

[Art Vandelay]

Distraction powers: Activate!
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I7fnrluSiY" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5I7fnrluSiY</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLkXlqe7CzE" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLkXlqe7CzE</a>
<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J03g8iS3PA" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6J03g8iS3PA</a>

[Mrs Scratchitt]

They're actually really good!

She keeps turning about 45 degrees but not going anywhere.

[Damen]

[SpaceProg]

If you're not Australian, you probably don't have anything to worry about.  Just leave it be.  It'll eat other annoying bugs in your office.

[largeham]

Until you get cockroaches nesting in your bedroom, you are fine.

[TheL]

Until you get cockroaches nesting in your bedroom, you are fine.

*huddles in a corner*  Ohgodohgodohgodohgodohgodohgod...

[shykid]

I know this crisis is most likely over now, but...

I can't reach it, don't think it deserves to die

...as a major arachnophobe,
YES. YES, IT DOES.

Dear Ceiling Cat, I got flashbacks of the fucking GINORMOUS banana spider that somehow sneaked onto a produce shipment to the store I used to work at x__x;

(BIG ARACHNOPHOBE TRIGGER WARNING!)

(click to show/hide)

I fucking swear it was the size of a small dog. It was chillaxing on the floor next to the produce pallet beside the one I was working on. Just the sight of it sent me into making choking noises and seeing black. Then it started running towards me. I screamed. Like a little girl. On helium. And started yelling high-pitched obscenities. And backing away as quickly as I could. I couldn't even turn around to run properly, because I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I just couldn't.

I knocked over a bunch of shit trying to escape, and I somehow climbed onto the top of a tall backstock cart with almost no effort. (If you saw it, you'd know why this was an impressive feat.) I was safe, but I was still babbling nonsense in falsetto and shaking. When I turned to go up the backstock cart, the spider kept going in the same direction, so it was either pretty dumb or wasn't actually chasing me. In retrospect, I strongly suspect the latter—it was probably just as scared as me and was actually trying to escape "that big scary loud guy who sounds like Michael Jackson having a stroke," but this really was not one of my most rational moments.

Anyway, my friend came in the backroom because he heard all the ruckus. (He was right outside doing stuff in produce.) He saw the spider, killed it, and got rid of it like it was nothing. He never let me live it down. HE HAD ALREADY SEEN ONE OF THESE EVIL CREATURES BEFORE AND KILLED IT.

[SpaceProg]

Well, that's one spider I think actually should be killed upon discovery in produce and the like because they don't belong here (US).  They can mess up a large chunk of the ecosystem, them furrin species.
Just ask the Aussies about the Cane Toad.

[shykid]

Yep. We've already got a "few" invasive, nonnative critters wreaking ecological havoc in Florida, ranging from 40-something species of lizards, to Burmese pythons, to suckermouths, to kudzu (which ain't called "the fine that ate the South" for nothin'), to water hyacinths (pretty much the aquatic equivalent of kudzu). Banana spiders (of the "Brazilian wandering spider" kind—just found out this morning that there's another, more "innocuous" species of spider also called "banana spiders") are extremely venomous and the arachnid equivalent of an apex predator, so you know their introduction to the area won't be pretty, either, especially when even its potential predators are poisoned to to death preying on it in its natural habitat.

[SpaceProg]

Yeah.  While I don't like killing animals of any kind... it's the welfare of the many vs. the one in that scenario.  Sorry, invasive species. :-/

[Normandy]

I know this crisis is most likely over now, but...

I can't reach it, don't think it deserves to die

...as a major arachnophobe,
YES. YES, IT DOES.

Dear Ceiling Cat, I got flashbacks of the fucking GINORMOUS banana spider that somehow sneaked onto a produce shipment to the store I used to work at x__x;

(BIG ARACHNOPHOBE TRIGGER WARNING!)

(click to show/hide)

I fucking swear it was the size of a small dog. It was chillaxing on the floor next to the produce pallet beside the one I was working on. Just the sight of it sent me into making choking noises and seeing black. Then it started running towards me. I screamed. Like a little girl. On helium. And started yelling high-pitched obscenities. And backing away as quickly as I could. I couldn't even turn around to run properly, because I couldn't take my eyes off of it. I just couldn't.

I knocked over a bunch of shit trying to escape, and I somehow climbed onto the top of a tall backstock cart with almost no effort. (If you saw it, you'd know why this was an impressive feat.) I was safe, but I was still babbling nonsense in falsetto and shaking. When I turned to go up the backstock cart, the spider kept going in the same direction, so it was either pretty dumb or wasn't actually chasing me. In retrospect, I strongly suspect the latter—it was probably just as scared as me and was actually trying to escape "that big scary loud guy who sounds like Michael Jackson having a stroke," but this really was not one of my most rational moments.

Anyway, my friend came in the backroom because he heard all the ruckus. (He was right outside doing stuff in produce.) He saw the spider, killed it, and got rid of it like it was nothing. He never let me live it down. HE HAD ALREADY SEEN ONE OF THESE EVIL CREATURES BEFORE AND KILLED IT.

Wow.  I'm pretty sure I might have peed myself if I saw one that big.  Even small spiders still freak me out.

[Sandafluffoid]

I should not have read this thread OH GOD EVERY ITCH IS NOW A TARANTULA OH GOD GET THEM OFF ME.

[Witchyjoshy]

Nothing like feeling each hair on your body adjust and instantly thinking it's a mosquito.

That's always fun.