Fauna Update

Last night four of us went to the movies and I was elected to drive. It's only a short way to the theater and when we were about 1/2 there, the Canadian in the back seat started in with "Oh thank God! It's on the outside! Oh thank God! It's on the outside!" Inquiring, he informed the rest of us that there was a Huntsman Spider running around the outside of the car.

"Uh-huh." I thought.

Spider on the outside of the car. What-evs. Until we got to the parking garage for the theater and a Huntsman the size of a beagle came loping down the windscreen. Honestly, this thing was HUGE. It trotted down into the gap where the windshield wipers get tucked when not in use and was lost to sight.

It was at this moment that the primary user of the car, the rector of the community where I'm living, piped in with: "Oh yes, he's been in here since the weekend. He was on the inside of the car on Saturday night. He seems to go back and forth from inside to outside somehow." This just after the spider has headed, unseen, for the engine compartment. Where the ducts which go from the heating/AC to the cab are. The size of this thing was...substantial. Seriously, it was probably 3"-4" across it's legs. And disturbing.

I now know where Peter Jackson got his inspiration for 'Shelob' in the film version of Lord of the Rings. He must have been staying in a hotel over here and found one in his room. He promptly called its agent and got it signed and it appears, lifesize, in the film, her name is Fiona and she lives in Milson's Point now if you want her autograph.

So at any rate, I find a parking space and we rapidly exited the car. Peering down toward the wipers, I couldn't see the beast.

I spent the whole film worrying about driving home. As I got in the car, I again looked down in the wiper slot and there were eight beady little eyes, the size of push pin balls, staring back at me. My entrance and locking of the door was swift.

One fool started to open his window because the Sydney night was muggy and warm. "What do you think you are doing? I don't care if we all roast, we are NOT exposing ourselves to that spider." He rolled the window back up.

I began driving toward the exit and the keychain, dangling down from the ignition brushed against the inside of my knee and I nearly rocketed through the windscreen. As we exited the parking garage, down a long, straight ramp, he popped out and began racing down the hood of the vehicle. Fairly certain that he meant to disable it and wait us out on the parking ramp, picking us off one by one, I jammed on the brakes and he disappeared over the edge of the hood. I gunned it in an attempt to crush him, but I don't know for certain that he actually fell off the vehicle. He made no further appearances, but I suspect he clung on, and I half expected him to pop back up at the last minute, a la Lord Wez at the end of The Road Warrior (Mad Max II for some of you). I made it home and parked the car. Got out hastily and gave the bonnet a cursory inspection. No spider.

My theories are that a) He may have gotten knocked off but is now only angry and will take this anger out on my when it finds its way home or: b) it is currently affixed to the undercarriage of the vehicle, waiting for me to come close enough to poison and feed upon.

If I stop posting abruptly, you'll know why.