Phoebe

Anyone that knows me, knows that I am absolutely terrified of spiders. Big ones, small ones, daddy long-legs - I don't give a shit - they all creep me out. Afterall, when one awakes at the age of 5 and finds such a creature has nested in the long, and apparently inviting, hair on the nape of their neck, one tends to become somewhat arachnophobic. So phobia aside, I somehow had a fascinating encounter with a spider this past weekend. Tyson, my crazy-ass brother for those of you not in the know, has been telling me of a certain arachnid that had taken up residence somewhere along the path on which he walks his AD/HD dog, Violet. You know how they say dogs tend to take up the traits and personalities of their owners? Well, never mind, that's a whole new blog. So anyway, my mom was in town and we went by my brother and his wife's place and for some retarded reason, I decide that I want to see this spider. Now, those of you familiar with my brother know that this is not an entirely bright idea when one is deathly afraid of something. Against my better judgment, down we go to see the spider. We shall call her Phoebe. And with no real "warning" of the magnitude of Phoebe, I about flipped when I saw her. There she sat. I kid you not, at least 7-8 inches in diameter - legs and all. Holy crap. Without a doubt the largest spider I have ever seen in person. I found out later that she is a Golden Silk Spider or Banana Spider. So we examine her for a bit, from a friggin' distance of course, and Ty decides he should throw something at her. Dear Lord, WHY, I don't know, but he precedes to throw a very large chunk of dried mud at Phoebe. I know it was not a nice thing to do, and I very well probably should have protested, but that scenario likely would have ended with him taking a stick and picking Phoebe up and trying to put her on me (as many childhood memories of similar incidences come flooding back to me). We look for her, for about a minute, both of us being chicken shits, and then leave for lunch. When we get back, no more than an hour later, Phoebe was not only back on her perch, but she had rebuilt the damn web. Whoa. Okay, so now I go grab the camera and take a few shots. Unfortunately, Phoebe is now missing a leg, undoubtedly thanks to Tyson and his precision aim. Kinda pretty, eh? Now you see why I was fascinated. Poor girl. I probably shouldn't tell you that Tyson hit her again, yes AGAIN, and this time I was not around to go back to check on her. Tyson is now convinced that she is going to exact revenge on him by lying in wait somewhere in his car and crawling on him at just the right moment. I think she would be justified, don't you? I am interested to know if she has rebuilt her web or if she said, 'screw this' and went somewhere else. I would send Ty to go look for me but, well, you get the picture...