Now. If you've never seen a Carolina Wolf Spider before, let me introduce you.
The Carolina Wolf Spider is the largest wolf spider in North America. Adult Carolina Wolf Spiders are about 4 inches across. They have a gray-brown body with a dark center stripe on the abdomen, long, hairy legs; and eight large, dark eyes of unequal size that reflect light (just in case the LARGE hairy body doesn't freak you out enough). They run down their prey (like a wolf) instead of catching it in a web.
They bite.
Now I generally like spiders and never kill a non-poisonous one under normal circumstances, but -shudder-.
Wolf spiders eat mostly ground-dwelling insects and other spiders, but, especially large females, may also eat small vertebrates. (Yikes!) They usually live in silk-lined burrows in the ground with silk and grass covering the entrance. That silk is thick as a sewing thread!
Well, the day I had the run-in with the wolf spider my family and I had just gotten back from a vacation at Myrtle Beach, SC, which is about a five hour drive from the wooded area in the hill country of South Carolina where we lived at the time.
We were all exhausted from the trip, and it was late.
I put my three small sons (ages 1, 3, and 5) in the tub and bathed them, dressed them in their pjs and put them to bed. Then I put in a load of clothes to wash and got in the shower.
At this point, I should probably tell you that I am nearly blind without my glasses.
I adjusted the water, got in the shower (as I said) and pulled the shower curtain closed.
It took about half a minute or so, I guess for the wolf spider who had taken up residence in our shower curtain to jump on my leg and climb up my back.
You can guess the rest.
Okay. I'll tell you. -sigh-
I started jumping and hollering and somehow knocked that spider off my back and ran buck naked and screaming into the hallway. Dripping water everywhere.
The noise I made could have easily raised the dead. Seriously. My exhaustion vanished in an instant. When I regained enough whits about myself to be able to use words again, I started screaming for my then husband to come kill that spider!
He made fun of me, of course, and told me to stop scaring the children.
He laughed when I told him how big the spider was, and said, "Okay. I'll go kill the little spider for you." I said, "Okay, don't believe me. You go see for yourself."
He came out of that bathroom pale-faced and visibly shaken, and said, "And just how am I supposed to kill that thing?"
I couldn't tell him, and I still don't know how he did it, but we both agreed that was the biggest spider we had ever seen, and I felt myself fortunate that it did not bite me.
He told the tale of that spider at his workplace and nobody much believed him either, but I promise you it is true. If you laid that spider on a mason jar, it's legs would have overlapped the circle all the way around.
-shudder-
I may have to sleep with the light on tonight remembering it! 😩 I still marvel (and am very very thankful) that the spider stayed in the shower curtain while I bathed my sons! What a nightmare!
I know these things do NOT happen to everyone. -sigh-
My life has been one adventure after another. I'll tell you more by and by.
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