Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The mother of all spiders - Joanopolis


Don't tell my kids but I hate spiders. It's true. Yes, I take them to the spider and snake museum (Instituto Butantan) about once a quarter but it is only part of my ongoing therapy. I love snakes. I hate spiders.

So when my kids caught this spider in an ice cream container this weekend at the fazenda (our rented country house), I had a hard time not screaming. It's carrying 100s of babies. Yeeecccchhhhh!

You do reap what you sow. When I got mad at the kids (pretending I cared for the safety and health of the kids and the spider), one said "but mommy, we checked first and it's not an armadeira because it didn't put up boxing hands". Armadeiras are one of the three deadly spiders in Brazil. Yay! My kids know how to threaten a spider so it will box them!  Or not.

Then the other one said "and mommy, it was heading towards your open bedroom window so we got it!" And I held on to my first response which was KILL IT and all its babies--I just said "oh, okay, thanks."

Then when their backs were turned (they released mama spider into the woods), I killed every last baby still heading toward the window. I counted 30 squishes. The horror.

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