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I live in Texas. There are brown recluse here. I don't really fear a spider since it doesn't seem like they are all that aggressive to people. The worst part of

by S_A_P 8y ago

I live in Texas. There are brown recluse here. I don't really fear a spider since it doesn't seem like they are all that aggressive to people. The worst part of spiders to me are when I walk through a web. Ive had a bad spider bite that caused great swelling and some necrosis, but I don't know it was a brown recluse. I personally have a nasty fear of wasps, which I cannot rationally explain other than I think they look mean and evil and can fly at you. Here in Houston, we have 2 types that are especially aggressive. The worst is the yellow jacket, since they are great at building a hive in the ground and their small size means you don't see them until its too late in many cases. The other is the Mahogany/Red paper wasp. These guys are usually ok most of the year, but as summer turns to fall, they get a bit aggressive and start wanting your food. They are also relatively large and make pretty big nests. Even through they are great mosquito killers, I won't let a nest live near a place I frequent. We also have cicada killer wasps, which are very large and very inquisitive. That combination usually has me spazing out at least once a year as they dive bomb me...

the_af 8y ago
Same here: I fear wasps more than spiders. Some spiders look sort of cute, and even the ugly ones don't seem aggressive, but all types of wasps look aggressive to me, all the time. It doesn't help that I've been stung by wasps more than once, but never by spiders.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  Yeah, wasps are much worse for me than spiders. But scorpions are even worse than wasps. They don't have the sound of their wings beating or the actual capability of flight, but they are much more alien looking -- and acting.
  - the_af 8y ago
    Scorpions do look menacing, but are they aggressive? The thing with wasps for me was that both times I was stung, I sort of walked near a nest but wasn't really doing anything to disturb them. Or one time I was having dessert at a restaurant and a bunch of yellowjackets flew through the open window and ganged up on me and wanted my dessert and my coke (in this case they weren't aggressive but attracted to the sweet smells/tastes, I know, but still scary). However, every time I've seen scorpions, they were doing their thing, away from me, and I got the idea that unless I actually stepped on them, they'd leave me alone.
core-questions 8y ago
> I personally have a nasty fear of wasps, which I cannot rationally explain other than I think they look mean and evil and can fly at you. It's a hindbrain thing, I have it too. The rational side of my brain doesn't need the onlookers to explain to me the technique of staying calm and not flailing about; the hindbrain is incapable of listening and wants me to just fuckin' run as fast as is humanly possible. It can be embarrassing at times...
bradknowles 8y ago
IMO, you haven't lived in Texas until you have gone into your office (or other room in your house) and found a large black tarantula in the corner of the window. Try sucking that up into even a powerful brand-new Dyson vacuum cleaner and watch the legs move around like crazy because all you did was piss it off. But frankly, the scorpions bother me a lot more. Especially when they like to hide in your laundry, and drop down onto the floor at night from your attic. You can hear them when they hit the floor. These days, I sit back one row from a guy we call "Spider Man", because his screen saver is nothing but giant pictures of spiders, 24x7. That will give you arachnophobia faster than anything I know of. Growing up in Oklahoma, I met plenty of Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders. My biology teacher collected them. He was extremely annoyed with me one day when I was cleaning some stuff up in the back of the room and the biggest brown recluse I've ever seen decided to take a quick trip up my arm. I managed to catch the thing and put it in a glass container filled with a clear liquid, and he looked at me like I was an idiot and told me "You know that water won't kill those things, right?" To which I replied "Yes, that's why the container is filled with alcohol." He really wanted that thing for his collection, and was quite miffed that I had actually managed to kill the sucker, before he could get his hands on it. The bite from a brown recluse or a black widow may be worse than a black tarantula that is bigger than your hand, but in my experience, the effect on your bowels is much larger with the tarantula.
- SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
  As a Texan as well, I've been lucky to have never have been bitten by a tarantula. I've never heard what you are saying about bowels before regarding being bitten. What I have heard is that the bite itself hurts a lot more vs a black widow or brown recluse but the venom is pretty weak comparatively.
  - bradknowles 8y ago
    In this case, bowel evacuation has less to do with being bitten by a tarantula and much more to do with literally having the shit scared out of you on seeing this thing inside your house. Yup, it's a real thing.
- 8y ago

by S_A_P 8y ago

the_af 8y ago

Same here: I fear wasps more than spiders. Some spiders look sort of cute, and even the ugly ones don't seem aggressive, but all types of wasps look aggressive to me, all the time. It doesn't help that I've been stung by wasps more than once, but never by spiders.

bradknowles 8y ago
Yeah, wasps are much worse for me than spiders. But scorpions are even worse than wasps. They don't have the sound of their wings beating or the actual capability of flight, but they are much more alien looking -- and acting.
- the_af 8y ago
  Scorpions do look menacing, but are they aggressive? The thing with wasps for me was that both times I was stung, I sort of walked near a nest but wasn't really doing anything to disturb them. Or one time I was having dessert at a restaurant and a bunch of yellowjackets flew through the open window and ganged up on me and wanted my dessert and my coke (in this case they weren't aggressive but attracted to the sweet smells/tastes, I know, but still scary). However, every time I've seen scorpions, they were doing their thing, away from me, and I got the idea that unless I actually stepped on them, they'd leave me alone.

core-questions 8y ago

> I personally have a nasty fear of wasps, which I cannot rationally explain other than I think they look mean and evil and can fly at you. It's a hindbrain thing, I have it too. The rational side of my brain doesn't need the onlookers to explain to me the technique of staying calm and not flailing about; the hindbrain is incapable of listening and wants me to just fuckin' run as fast as is humanly possible. It can be embarrassing at times...

bradknowles 8y ago

IMO, you haven't lived in Texas until you have gone into your office (or other room in your house) and found a large black tarantula in the corner of the window. Try sucking that up into even a powerful brand-new Dyson vacuum cleaner and watch the legs move around like crazy because all you did was piss it off. But frankly, the scorpions bother me a lot more. Especially when they like to hide in your laundry, and drop down onto the floor at night from your attic. You can hear them when they hit the floor. These days, I sit back one row from a guy we call "Spider Man", because his screen saver is nothing but giant pictures of spiders, 24x7. That will give you arachnophobia faster than anything I know of. Growing up in Oklahoma, I met plenty of Black Widow and Brown Recluse spiders. My biology teacher collected them. He was extremely annoyed with me one day when I was cleaning some stuff up in the back of the room and the biggest brown recluse I've ever seen decided to take a quick trip up my arm. I managed to catch the thing and put it in a glass container filled with a clear liquid, and he looked at me like I was an idiot and told me "You know that water won't kill those things, right?" To which I replied "Yes, that's why the container is filled with alcohol." He really wanted that thing for his collection, and was quite miffed that I had actually managed to kill the sucker, before he could get his hands on it. The bite from a brown recluse or a black widow may be worse than a black tarantula that is bigger than your hand, but in my experience, the effect on your bowels is much larger with the tarantula.

SOLAR_FIELDS 8y ago
As a Texan as well, I've been lucky to have never have been bitten by a tarantula. I've never heard what you are saying about bowels before regarding being bitten. What I have heard is that the bite itself hurts a lot more vs a black widow or brown recluse but the venom is pretty weak comparatively.
- bradknowles 8y ago
  In this case, bowel evacuation has less to do with being bitten by a tarantula and much more to do with literally having the shit scared out of you on seeing this thing inside your house. Yup, it's a real thing.
8y ago