Alfred Had Nothing On Ankaboot

One of my major concerns about when Zack is gone is my lack of a spider killer. Every year in the fall, well all 2 of them, that I've been in this house the spider problem is terrifying. From the windows in our house we can see the bigger than a half dollar size spiders crawling around in the bushes in front of the house.
When it was just Haley and I the spiders inside the house were a much much larger issue. I don't know why. They were EVERYWHERE. We had this super massive lint roller (read: intense dog hair problem) that looked like a paint roller. It was on a super long extendable poll thingy. Haley and I rolled several spiders from a safe 6 feet away while screaming and hopping like lunatics. It was touch and go, and I made the landlord hire someone to spray, but we lived.
Last year we met Alfred.
Alfred was a spider the size of a hamster. He was big enough that I knew his name from reading his name tag. He came to terrify me by building a web right in front of my living room windows every night, that reached just close enough to the porch banister that I thought Hank would get caught in it. Every night he looked at me through the window while I shook, with all 100 of his creepy little eye balls. For months he showed up every night around 6pm and was gone, web included, by the time I woke up in the morning. Sneaky little bastard.
I'm pretty sure Alfred had to work very early in the morning, so he had to pack it up and get their on time. Thank God Hay and I made such a spectacle of spider killing, because I think Alfred heard about it. Which is why he never let me catch his big ass in my house.
Regardless, Alfred was something I talked about on facebook on the regular. His presence, even outside, haunted me. All of my friends were aware of Alfred and when Zack was home he and his friends would stand on the porch and smoke while I stared at Alfred hoping the second hand smoke would cause him to contract an illness. This went on for months, and Zack refused to put out a hit on the little bastard because he said he ate the mosquitoes and other bugs and that Alfred was probably the reason that we didn't really have an indoor spider problem. This theory was of no consequence to me, and gave me nightmares about him eating smaller spiders. It was horrifying.
Then came what should have been D day for Alfred, but what turned out to be the day I wanted to burn the house down and build a new one, and move out of it just for good measure.
Zack and Doug had been drinking, and I had a headache, so I went to bed at about midnight. When Zack smokes he usually leaves the front door open, because he likes to talk to the people in the house. Even when there's no one in the living room, out of habit, he leaves the door open. Meaning I could hear went on that night.
I like to listen to the drunken ramblings of my husband and his friends because they're absolutely silly. That night they were discussing using my spray deodorant and a lighter to, essentially, blow torch Alfred. I immediately yelled out to tell them I did not want them to burn the house down, and I was pretty sure if they lit him on fire he would just run his humungous flaming ass into the house to call 911. It was a disaster in the making, and I advised against it.
Well, like a lot of the things I advise drunk people against, they decided this was the best plan of action and I was too tired to deal with the nonsense. I crossed my fingers and fell asleep.
The next thing I know, probably about 10 minutes later, I heard women screaming outside at the top of their lungs. They were screaming and yelling "Under the stair! Move the stair!" And then more loud squealing screams. The women sounded like they were being chased by a tiger and I thought maybe Zack and Doug caught the neighbors house on fire and the girls who live next door ran out only to be greeted by a flaming Alfred. In that case the screaming made sense. So I jumped up and ran out to the living room to see what was happening.
To my surprise the only women yelling were Zack and Doug. And they were doing the familiar spider killing hop and scream that Haley and I had done. They were standing in the yard trying to gain control of their flailing limbs when I came out. It was hilarious, but I was relieved because I assumed that, like when Hay and I did the hop and scream, Alfred had seen his last days.
Alas, I was incorrect.
Apparently what had happened was that they had set Alfred's web ablaze and Alfred casually hopped on to the ground (when the woman screaming began). My brave USN Sailors then moved the single cement stair next to the porch to 'get him' and just as they did... a SNAKE slithered out from underneath. Causing the hilarious limb flailing and my sudden urge to burn the house down.
Why me?? WHY ME??
That was the day I discovered my husband is also scared of spiders. And snakes. Maybe not to my extent, he could still take them out sober in broad day light with a shoe, but he was definitely a little frightened of MASSIVE man spiders when intoxicated, and he doesn't like snakes much either.

** Side note** Alfred showed up again several days later, only this time he was more aggressive and hung from the screen door. 

I locked Zack out of the house and told him he could live in it again when he got rid of Alfred. I recorded the Shoe Vs Spider showdown, and on that glorious day the Shoe won.  

The snake, or rather a snake, met it's match with the lawn mower a few days after that.****

Welp.

Today my mom sent me a message about how my brother saw something on the Discovery Channel about massive spiders in Bahrain. So I did some googling... holy shit.

Meet Ankaboot (spider in Arabic)

I hate the idea of not being with Zack, but I have never ever been so happy to not be going to Bahrain with him before in my LIFE. Holy balls.

You may now take pause and itch all over.

I wont post any more terrible pictures of Bahraini spiders here. Google it though, if you're brave. They're massive. And they're aggressive.

I'm going to put the Shoe Vs Spider showdown on a DVD for Zack to take with him to Bahrain. If he's smart he will play it on a loop in his barracks so that the spiders tell their spider friends what a spider killing badass Zack is.  

You and I will know the truth, but they don't need to know.