Tis the Season

This post is dedicated to my mom who claims she's afraid to visit because she's heard of our spider stories. We found this beauty lounging on the wall near the laundry room yesterday. It was huge and scary! We find one like this almost weekly and the daddy long leg type several times a week. I hate spiders, hate walking into their webs and worst of all, hate cleaning up after the SMACK!
Here in Germany, you don't have exterminators, in fact the week we moved in I asked my German neighbor who speaks good English where to find one. He was perplexed as to why I'd want one, just use a broom or your vacuum. Why put chemicals into your house? WHAT??? Because I don't like to share my house with these 8 legged giants. So, I've learned to vacuum and stand back as far as I can from the spider just in case it runs. Oh, our vacuum is a canister vac that has a small lever on the handle where you can slide it open to let air flow out. I make sure my hand is over that lever so mr. spidey can't escape. I've got the willies just thinking about this! I always think of the spiders in my vac and hope they don't ever find their way out. We had a spider about 4 months ago that wouldn't fit under a plastic cup that we'd gotten from Red Robin. HE was that big! We tried to capture it with the cup and Lola the dog came by and tipped the cup over. We all screamed and hollered until it was again under the cup. The worst part is it came from under the kitchen table bench that I was sitting on. :-(
muah ha ha ha ha ha!