Talk about playing with fire.
Mark, July 5, 2005
Yes, I had my first encounter with the infamous (meaning "more than famous"), Camel Spider. I had taken trash to the big dumpster and while throwing everything in I got oil on my hands, but I saw a clean one in the dumpster and reached in and grabbed it. As I stood up I saw something out of the corner of my eye, and let me tell you, it was fast. I jumped back and it raced right under me on the rim of the dumpster, about chest high. When I moved back it jumped (it did not fall!), it jumped towards me, off the dumpster. Luckily, it missed me or I'd have been run out of the army for screaming like a little girl. It ran under the hummvee and I found myself saying to myself "self, 120 is not really that hot, a nice walk (or run) back to the motorpool sounds pretty good". But I decided to try to get a picture of it for everyone and I moved the hummvee forward and tried to find it on the ground, but it had vanished (because thats what spiders do, they know they can scare you more if they pull the "now you see me, now you don't" trick). Now, who says I don't love you guys. I was prepared to face a huge, mutant spider, with nothing between us but a camera, for YOU!! Insurgents are one thing, just as long as the president promises never to send us into caves to destroy the camel spider population. I don't think I'd ever recover from that. I hope you all enjoyed my story, just a little entertainmen at my expense, I can deal with that. So next time you see a spider in your house, don't freak out, I promise you it won't be the size of a rat and look like the thing from Alien that attatches itself to your face (and that's the best I can honestly describe it).