Spider in the hole!

[Ninurta]

There is some kind o spider here that I don't know what it's really called, but I call them "dancing spiders", because they "roll", right and left like a spun coin settling down, when they move. They are the only ones I know of that will come after you for no good reason. When I was in my 20's, I had one chase me across the floor trying to get at me. Every time I raised my foot to squash it, it would jump as high as my knees and straight at me, so I had to scoot backwards on my feet to keep it from landing on me. I finally killed it by picking up a boot and dropping it on it exactly when it landed on the floor.

Please tell me you're joking   Because I would not have survived that out of sheer terror ! How in the world does any spider jump as high as your knees!!! 

Nope, not joking. They're about as big around as a silver dollar across the legs, and lightly built - not heavily built like a tarantula. I don't know how they jump like that. I presume it's a sudden change in the hydraulic pressure in their legs. I'm 6' 2" tall, so my knees are only about 18 or 20" off the ground. Considering that quarter inch long jumping spiders can jump 3 or 4 feet when hunting, the abilities of "dancing spiders" don't shock me all that much.

No dying. You're not allowed to die in the moment. There's that spider that needs killin', and dying don't help you get that done! You just have to handle it.

Speaking of jumping spiders, several years ago I was walking through the woods, minding my own business, and all of a sudden felt a burning, itching sensation on my upper left chest. I pulled my shirt back to see what was causing it, and lo and behold there was a tiny little juvenile jumping spider, maybe an eighth of an inch long, sitting there and digging in with feet and fangs, giving 'er all it had to try to bring me down.

That one didn't live long, either.

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