It pays to look

[Ed62]

After my shower, I was ready to get dressed. I grabbed a pair of underwear to put on. Just before I put my first leg in them, I saw a spider inside them!! For the most part, I'm not afraid of spiders, but I don't think my underwear is an acceptable place for them to call home. If you're wondering, I didn't kill it.

Ed

[cabinetman]

I heard somewhere, it may have been on the internet, or while I was in line at the Post Office, or read it in some magazine or health periodical, or from a friend or friend of a neighbor, can't really remember because it was either last week or two years ago...and mind you I haven't tried this technique.

Anyway, getting back to the technique, for extra exercise, to jump up and shoot both feet through your underwear at the same time.
.

[LinuxRandal]

After my shower, I was ready to get dressed. I grabbed a pair of underwear to put on. Just before I put my first leg in them, I saw a spider inside them!! For the most part, I'm not afraid of spiders, but I don't think my underwear is an acceptable place for them to call home. If you're wondering, I didn't kill it.

Ed

I always check my shoes after YEARS ago, a friend started to put his on and a mouse was in one.
But when it comes to shoes, I should check them otherwise! I bought a pair (box and labels marked one size) and my feet always hurt at the end of the day (they say they get larger as you get older, I thought that was it).
When they started falling apart, I was looking at them (debating replacement or inserts), and I found out they were a half size smaller. No wonder they hurt.

[poolhound]

Checking your shoes, under the bedcovers and even in the toilet if you live in certain more newly developed parts of our sunny state is a wise precaution.

We have two pretty nasty critters here - Scorpions and Brown Recluse Spiders. Both will give you a really nasty bite and can be fatal.

I am lucky as I live in a neigbourhood that was built out over 20 years ago so most of the critters moved on. When they go and dig up another piece of fresh desert and build a new community they are also destroying the previous tenants homes e.g. the insects and animals. They tend to not move on for quite a while and try to co-habitate.

We do of course also have rattlesnakes but I have never heard of somebody getting one inside their house :-)

[jonmulzer]

Several years ago I went to put on my winter boots (thick buggers, rated to -50F) with those woolish looking insoles that always caught on my socks and wadded up if I was not careful. I put the first one on no problem and the second one as soon as I slipped it on my toes got scrunched up at the end. I thought I had pushed the insoles down so I take it back off and reach inside to straighten it out and there is something "furrier" and softer than I was used to. Then I noticed my cats were paying more attention to my morning ritual than normal. I tip the boot upside down and shake the crap out of it and out comes a mouse and the cats were all over it. I couldn't believe it did not bite me when I smashed it into the toe of the boot with my foot. Now I always turn them upside down and give them a shake. *shudder*

[dkerfoot]

As long as we are telling horror stories...

When I was 16, I worked on a dairy farm. I didn't grow up on a farm, so my eyes were opened in many, many ways during those two years.

One day I was grinding corn. Basically, I was shoveling whole cobs of hard feed corn (not soft at all like sweet corn) into an auger that carried it up to be ground. All of a sudden, a mouse decided to seek a safer hiding place - up my pants leg!

I grabbed it from the outside, a few inches above my knee. But then you have the problem of what next? I hesitated only a moment before dropping trou right there in front of a semi-busy road...

Thankfully, in the process I didn't fall into the auger. It is the secondary injuries that seem to be the nastiest - like disturbing a hornet's nest while working on a roof.

[jonmulzer]

Thankfully, in the process I didn't fall into the auger. It is the secondary injuries that seem to be the nastiest - like disturbing a hornet's nest while working on a roof.

You are certainly lucky there. Grain augers can make a table saw look like a nerf ball sewn up in a goose down pillow. Table saws cut something off and stop, grain augers cut off your fingers and then work on your arm.......

[footprintsinconc]

the mouse up the pants reminds me of when i was like in grade 5, we were staying at a friends house (were in between places). it was bed time. i was leaning against the sofa arm and drinking milk and my uncle was right across from me. he was rolling out a sleeping bag and the next thing i knew, there was something crawling up my leg inside my track pants real fast. i just yelled and threw the full glass of milk and was kicking crazily all over the place until i saw the mouse running away from me. it was a scene. my mom reminds me of it every few years when we start talking of the good old days

now, i am almost alsways cautious of when unrolling a sleeping bag (unless its in a bag that is tightly closed), toilets creep me a bit after what i found at one time and shoes.

[jgrobler]

A friend of mine who is very afraid of spiders has a favorite trivia - On average people eat about 8 spiders a year in their sleep.

Johan

[RAFlorida]

Uh Johan, would that be with or without

chocolet?! I also had heard that story, but I have doubts about it. I was born and raised in central Ohio, and when I was going to school one winter morning, I pulled a glove on one hand and felt something fuzzy. Startled, pulling the glove off in a flash, out came a mouse. Forever after I check EVERYTHING that comes in contact w/my body!!

[L. D. Jeffries]

Well, while we are on these kind of stories; when we lived in Boise I usually left a pair of "deck" type slip-ons out on the patio. Went out one morning, slipped my foot into one of them and felt something cold and wet! When I turned it up and gave a shake out fell a toad!! Non the worse for the experience glad to say...both of us that is.

[billwmeyer]

One of my favorite family stories was one about my Grampa Mason, who put on his boot one morning and figured out that there was a snake in it. One thing I inherited from my grampa is his fear of snakes. He had a heck of a time jumping around and trying to get that boot off.

Doug, grain augers are dangerous. A young man I worked with at a grain elevator, tried to free up a stuck grain auger with his hand and lost his thumb. It was too mangled to reattach. Losing a finger is bad, but a thumb is terrible.

Bill

[docrowan]

I often throw my sleep shorts and t shirt on the floor of my closet and reuse them the next night. Since we still have a few brown recluse spiders left over from our last house roaming around in our attic, you can bet I turn them both inside out before I put them on.