Spider

“Spider attack! There are more crawling around lying in wait for you to close your eyes and drift off to sleep so that you are easier to subdue.”
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This is my brain’s current screeching. Because I found this waiting for my on my drying rack next to my finally dry socks.

And HOLY-FREAKING-CRAP! it was fuzzy, and the jaw-things fluoresced that yellow color under the camera flash, and it released venom in that container right after this picture was taken!

I have no idea what kind of spider this was. I’ve never seen it in Southern California. Ever. And I used to live on the edge of the desert and am very familiar with wind scorpions, black widows, and even brown widows (now that they’ve moved to the area).

Perhaps this was a baby Shelob, and I missed my opportunity to journey into Mordor and save the world.

But for once I don’t care if I missed my opportunity. Because seriously, this is one creepy spider, and I am terrified of spiders. (Don’t even try to convince me that this fear is stupid. I know it’s irrational. Just accept that I am afraid of their disconcerting movements and giant pincer-things and their disproportional ability to potentially kill me.) And I stayed up writing this out in an effort to possibly sleep at least a little tonight.

If you do, however, happen to know what kind of spider this is, please let me know. It’s free outside away from me, but I would like to know in case it brought along friends.