The Vent and Rant Thread

[poohbear_nc]

Thanks for all your concerns -- I have been bitten by spiders SO many times I tolerate the venom fairly well now (sad, I know) -- even brown recluse bites (they take weeks to finally heal over)

Something about me attracts spiders (pheromones? bad karma?) -- I often tell folks that if I am in a room with 50 people and 1 spider, I'm the one that will be bitten.

Last night's bites are subsiding.
The brown recluse bite on my elbow from last month has finally scabbed over.

An unkind co-worker suggested renting me to exterminator companies -- as bait!

This time of year we have LOTS of marbled orb weavers (Google Image these - I'm too squeamish to post pics) around the house, deck, and trees. Females can be huge - and the webs can span several feet.

[ApK]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Something about me attracts spiders (pheromones? bad karma?) -- I often tell folks that if I am in a room with 50 people and 1 spider, I'm the one that will be bitten.

Borrowing from Douglas Adams, perhaps you are unknowingly a spider god, and the spiders just want to be near you, and love you, and suck on you.

[covingtoncat73]

Good: got out the house early enough to bike to work and have breakfast out while doing so on as decent a morning as we're likely to get this time of year. Bad: I forgot to take my blood pressure, fluid retention, and thyroid medication.

[poohbear_nc]

Originally Posted by ApK

Borrowing from Douglas Adams, perhaps you are unknowingly a spider god, and the spiders just want to be near you, and love you, and suck on you.

Can I abdicate the throne?

[Cinisajoy]

Originally Posted by cromag

My wife and kids are in NYC for the day*, bonding over a visit to the Met and then an evening show. I went out to a couple of stores to get stocked up -- we're feeding two young adults this week.

When I got home I put a burger on the stove to cook for dinner. This is not a problem for me. As a former stay-at-home dad I used to do all of the cooking. These days, with the kids usually out and just us at home, my wife shares the dinner cooking chore.

Anyway, when I lifted the pan's cover to flip the hamburger there was a flash, but the frying pan didn't catch fire. Instead, the filter in the range hood above it caught fire. I turned off the stove, then the vent fan. It was a small fire, but had my full attention, so I called 911. While I was on the line with 911 I smothered the flames with a wet kitchen towel. The operator suggested someone come out to check things out just in case, and that sounded like a good idea -- best to let a pro check something like this out.

I expected they'd send someone out with an infrared heat gun in one of the Fire Dept. SUVs.

And, in fact, an SUV showed up in minutes and a guy came in with an IR heat gun ...

... His car was followed by two more SUVs, two utility pick-up trucks, and two fire engines. All with flashing lights and spotlights trained on the house. No sirens, thank goodness. (We live at the end of a long dead end -- I expect to be explaining this to my neighbors for the rest of the week.)

The crew came through and checked everything out very thoroughly. Very, very thoroughly. The Fire Department Captain was there -- I know, because we're friends. I know his son from Cub Scouts, years ago. He's in the Dept. now, and he was there, too.




So, anyway, I was right, the fire was completely out. But it's good to have it professionally verified. Cleaning up the stove area under the burned out hood only took about ten minutes.




* In all honesty, if this had to happen I'm glad it happened to me, not the wife or kids. And I'm also happy they weren't home for it.

Glad you are ok.
Good luck with the neighbors and your wife.

[Cinisajoy]

I thought I was having a conversation with an almost 40 year old woman today. Apparently, I was wrong. I will from now on remember although she has a job and kids, to treat her with kid gloves.

Oh correction. It was not the almost 40 year old. It was her butinsky mom.

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Can I abdicate the throne?

While I usually get the giggles at arachnophobia--and I am no lover of bugs, myself, believe me--because we have Tarantulas here--ANYONE who has been through a Recluse bite has my complete and total sympathy, and you have every sane reason to be afraid of spiders.

Recluse bites are something that the typical person can't even conceptualize. I know a woman in Wyoming whose entire upper arm/shoulder was destroyed, by a Recluse bite. Took her nearly two years to recover, and much of the tissue in the area was necrotic, requiring drastic measures. Horrible things. While I appreciate some spiders, where we are--because they help keep the bug population down, etc.--I kill them constantly, because I live in dread that a recluse will bite one of my cats. We're in the upper desert, and they're populous here.

Hitch

[WT Sharpe]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Thanks for all your concerns -- I have been bitten by spiders SO many times I tolerate the venom fairly well now (sad, I know) -- even brown recluse bites (they take weeks to finally heal over)

Something about me attracts spiders (pheromones? bad karma?) -- I often tell folks that if I am in a room with 50 people and 1 spider, I'm the one that will be bitten.

Last night's bites are subsiding.
The brown recluse bite on my elbow from last month has finally scabbed over.

An unkind co-worker suggested renting me to exterminator companies -- as bait!

This time of year we have LOTS of marbled orb weavers (Google Image these - I'm too squeamish to post pics) around the house, deck, and trees. Females can be huge - and the webs can span several feet.

Forgive me, but that line made me laugh out loud!

[Hitch]

Originally Posted by poohbear_nc

Can I abdicate the throne?

Man, you can't make this stuff up--my DH just went out on the back patio, to unwrap a piece of carpet, by the rear door, that had become wrapped over on itself, in the windstorm. We'd seen Gojira--our resident large lizard, King of the Patio--hiding in it, and decided that we needed to unravel it, so that he wouldn't take up permanent residence.

ANYWAY, DH goes out there, unwraps the carpet--and not only does Gojira, and his girlfriend, apparently, go scooting--but so does--a tarantula. A little one, Pooh, so you can relax--but a Tarantula, anyway. It's their migration season, and sure enough, he's trying to get in the back door. No opening the door for a few days!

(A local newspaper ran a story about one local woman whose home sits right on a historical Tarantula migration path. Each year, when they come, they walk in her house (however they get in!), and then across her ceiling, and out again, over the course of 3-4 days. Given that we have the Thundercats here, that wouldn't go over so well, but...at least, I guess, we only have a few of them, not the whole damn Thundering Herd.)

I told DH to leave him or her be; s/he will wander his/her way around the house, and then over the front porch, and hopefully, keep heading his/her way to...well, wherever Tarantulas go, when they're done summering. I guess.

Bizarre thing? First one I've seen this year. It's POOH! It's true--he's spider bait.

Hitch

[poohbear_nc]

@Hitch - I've seen videos of the Tarantula migrations - Wow! I would hate to be even close to a herd ... and watch them change direction towards me!

Or maybe I could become rich as the Pied Piper of Arachnids?

NOT!

[wodin]

We don't have tarantulas in the beautiful Sandwich Islands but we do have Giant Hawaiian Cane Spiders!



We like them, it's considered lucky to have one in your house. They keep the Giant Hawaiian Cockroaches away.

[Dazrin]

Many years ago, when my mother was in her early teens, her neighbor came over Thanksgiving morning and was bragging about how he and his brother would each get a turkey leg for their very own. My grandfather responded to this saying "All five of us get our own leg for dinner. And we have leftovers if you want one." The neighbor didn't believe that so my grandfather encouraged him to check the oven. So he did ... and quickly ran out of the house.

At the time my grandfather worked in a fruit warehouse in central Washington and had run across a tarantula while sorting bananas and decided to encase it in resin. Since they were joining friends for Thanksgiving dinner and didn't need to cook anything he was curing it in the oven when the neighbor boy looked in.

[poohbear_nc]

Spoiler tags man! Use spoiler tags! Please!

[Cinisajoy]

Hey poohbear,
Did you hear about the granddaddy long legs bathroom?
If not I will gladly tell you all about it. But we didn't have a camera at the time so no pics.

[Hemmi]

Well, my nice long drive tonight helped me get my mad out. Nothing like blasting down the road at 70mph out in the literal middle of nowhere for 2+ hours after I've worked all day.

Seriously, if the mysterious disappearing coworker does not have something serious going on, she certainly will when I get my hands on her. Not that she's my coworker anymore. I would like to at least know that she's okay.