Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Something Bizarre Happened

Well, this is the last Something Bizarre post, mostly because once I decided to add it to the editorial calendar, nothing bizarre happened. It's been tough to come up with anything people might actually want to read about. I'm going to replace the post with one titled "Lovely Links," where I'll post some of the links I liked the best from the last month. And if something bizarre actually happens, I'll still share, but I won't have the pressure to perform!

I do have a story for today, though. About six weeks ago I began eating more fruits and veggies in an attempt to get closer to a plant-based diet. I'm actually more of a vegetarian, though, than vegan. Anyway, I love grapes and on this particular day I brought a large bunch to school with me.

At lunchtime I noticed that there were some spider webs on the grapes, and so pulled them out and laid them on top of the plastic baggie I brought them in, so I could better see which grapes had webs or were squished and gross. I've encountered spider-webby grapes before, and had just thrown the webbed grapes away and all was good.

No, it wasn't this big, but in the moment,
it sure seemed to be!
Photo from freedigitalphotos.net
This day, all was not good. I turned away from my desk to get something and when I turned back to the grapes a huge (for Wyoming) spider was crawling away from the grapes on the top of my desk. It was black, fuzzy, and had white dots on it's hind end. It did not look like any spider I'd ever seen in Wyoming before. Most of the house spiders I've encountered are not hairy. Or that big.

I didn't know what to squish it with, but it was going down, so I grabbed a kleenex, covered it up and then smashed it with one of my therapy books. I proceeded to throw out the grapes. (In the trash can in the teacher's lounge - not in my trash can. What if there were more spiders!) And then I twitched in disgust for several more minutes.

So the lesson is: Really check your grapes closely for spiders, especially if they have some webs on them.

Did something bizarre happen to you last month?

21 comments:

  1. Oh boy, I'm laughing. Yuck. I don't think I've ever found spider webs on my grapes. I will definitely heed your warning if I do. I wonder why kind of spider it was. Ewww.

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    1. I wonder, too. And I'm wondering where it came from - like from out of state? It has to have come from out of state.

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  2. LOL. That would put me off grapes for a long time. I've also heard there are these very poisonous spiders in South America that occupy banana trees...and so naturally I'm very paranoid about buying bananas, even though the possibility of one ever hitchhiking a ride all the way to Colorado is probably nil.

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    1. I totally get the bananas. When we went shopping this weekend, and there were some lovely grapes, I couldn't go near them. My husband picked a bunch out and double checked for no webs, and then washed them when we got home and checked them again. I think that's the way it'll go for a while.

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  3. Oh just reading that gives me the heebies. Colorado isn't known for it's big spiders either. Or snakes. I'm staying put.

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    1. Yeah - that's the nice thing about living in the higher elevations!

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  5. If you've never seen huge spiders, you should come to Florida. The wolf spiders here get to be very large!!

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    1. Well, I've seen them, just not in Wyoming. The biggest spider I've ever seen was in Costa Rica. The body wasn't that big (a couple of inches, maybe), but the legs were gigantic. It's total reach was larger than my hand.

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  6. Thank goodness I've never bought or even seen "webby" grapes. I'm not much of a healthy eater either. And, by the way, I've never seen spiders on French fries!!!! lol

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    1. Excellent point about the fries!! I love french fries, too. This could be a good reason to choose fries over grapes.

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  7. Icky! Life is sometimes bizarre, but that's life. :)

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  8. Aw, Lara. He wasn't big enough to eat much. Why not share with him. lol

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    1. Because I'm not sure what he wanted to eat! Maybe the grapes were just his home and he was really a vicious, woman eating spider?

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  9. I love grapes, so I'll definitely be watching out for spiders!

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    1. Excellent idea. I'm thinking I should be paying more attention to produce in general. :P

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  10. I love that you covered it and smashed him with a therapy book, some of those are massive. :) My husband hates spiders but my son thinks they are his friends so whenever we find one in the house my husband calls me to kill it and my son doesn't want me to kill it. I now have to catch and release all the spiders that get in our house! Luckily we don't have poisonous spiders around here.

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    1. Yeah, the therapy book was definitely a heavy hitter (ha!). I don't like to kill things, and usually will catch and release most insects. Something about this spider turned off that compassion button, though. I just wanted it dead. I did still feel a little guilt at smashing it, though. I mean, it was just being a spider, after all.

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  11. LOL! I would have done the same thing--including letting the teachers in the lounge take their chances (only to protect my students, of course). The ick factor is that he traveled with you, in your bag--from home, in the car, to the classroom/office. He really must have liked those grapes. :P Guess they were to die for.

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    1. Ha! To die for! You are so clever, and you totally cracked me up!! The grapes were in our refrigerator, too. So, the spider went from the store, got washed, put in a bowl in the refrigerator, got taken out, bagged up and brought to work with me. So many opportunities to find it, but we didn't. Crazy.

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