Costa Rica Costa Of Living Update: Yearly Marchamo Renewal (registration and basic car insurance)— $213
Yesterday, my husband yelled for me to grab my camera and take a picture of an interesting spider he found on the bed. He was pretty cool with a long body and small stripes across his legs. I couldn’t pass it up.
“Make sure you get a picture of him running toward your face,” Rob said while picking him up with the tiny lid of an Edge Shaving Cream can. The spider’s legs were so long that they dangled over the rim. Once Rob dumped him back on our bed, I went all Anne Leibovitz and took about seventy-five shots of the arachnid. I’m surprised I didn’t stick him in a flower pot and put a daisy hat on his head. It wasn’t until he ran directly toward my mouth that I backed up and let him scurry away.
Later that day, I posted one of the pictures on Facebook where someone informed me that it’s a banana spider and he’s deadly. He can also jump up to four feet so it’s wise to stay a healthy distance away. If you want to see me spit a full mouth of coffee across my computer screen, this is about the best comment you can leave me. I wish there was a picture of the expression I gave my husband. Gentlemen, you know the face. The one your wife gives you at a dinner party when you say something dumb.
I immediately Google the spider and yes, he is deadly. But mine didn’t have the red fangs so if bitten, I wouldn’t die, but would need to be rushed to the hospital due to “extensive pain.” This is nice because I could have shared a room with my husband, who would also be suffering from “extensive pain” after his eardrums exploded from me screaming at him.
If one of us was to get bit, I suppose it’s better being me. One of the symptoms in men is profoundly painful erections. If only that was the side effect of saying dumb things at dinner parties… Rob would never open his mouth again.
The spider is so cute! I just wanted to cuddle him……until i read about excruciating pain…
Yes, that tends to not make the best of pets!
I’m so glad we already had our flights booked when I started reading about the bugs and spiders of CR, or we wouldn’t be coming! If I see anything resembling any of the above mentioned I won’t be stopping to assess whether it’s dangerous, it’ll be eating my dust! 😮
LOL… I scream every single time. You would think I’d get used to them by now!
Thanks Geo, the debate is still out on that one. There are some pics on the internet of banana spiders that look exactly like it. I think I’ll sent it out to a college department to find out for sure!
You’ve clearly discovered how to wrangle the male portion of the population….anything involving painful erections, or erections, is going to get their attention. (And I include myself in that portion!) Hysterical laughing at your plights, and poor Rob. He should write his own book….
You are right, I have found the Achilles heel. Threaten a man with an erection, any kind of erection, and all of a sudden you get their attention. I’m working on a master plan of ruling this planet, and it all starts with that banana spider.
And poor Rob should write a book, but I fear I would be on the other end of the story. Hmm… let’s not mention it to him.
I used to have to walk under a canopy of banana spiders to get to my house in Jamaica. It made me nauseous every.single.time. It makes me just as nauseous looking at your picture remembering walking under said canopy. Yuck! I’m glad I never saw any of these when I was in CR. Oh, and thanks for the laugh 🙂
I’m glad I got to bring back such a icky memory!! So you know how creepy these spiders are. I would not want to walk under a tree of them… not way!
1. Rob needs a publicist. He clearly isn’t getting enough good spin from these adventures.
2. I’m qualified to offer point #1 because you have my wife constantly exclaiming, “That sounds like something you would do!”
We’re going to check out CR in the summer. Please keep the spiders busy as they send my wife into hysterics.
Rob should have a publicist. Clearly, I am not showcasing all his hidden talents. One of which is manic spider removal.
Now let my interject here… he DID NOT go on a spider reconnaissance mission when he found out they could kill you. That only delivered a mild sense of urgency.
He ran around the house like a nut job when he found out they could cause painful erections. I’ve never seen him run so fast in my life. It was as if he felt one coming on.
So now I’m planning on some sort of strategy to make him think that leaving the dirty dishes on the counter will deliver such a painful event. Or when letting the garbage pile up–refusing to go to the dumpster until we have a half dozen stinky bags sitting around– he will be stricken with one heck of a painful boner.
I’m still working on this plan, and I’m sure every woman across the planet is behind me on this.
Spider really. Like u couldn’t use the freakin monkey lens
No, had to make sure I got up nice and close!
Even my HUSBAND laughed about this one… at the end…
Thanks for the rush! oh and we’re glad you’re OK!
It’s amazing how many husband’s this story has resonated with. I should write more about painful erections, it seems to get their attention!
OMG….I think you need to buy a bug book. Happy New Year from Tammy & Dave on Vancouver Island
Hi Tammy! At first I thought you wrote a Big Book, which would suffice is squashing the daylights out of the spider!
Happy New Years to you too!
There are so damn many spiders around my place it gets a bit old and several with red and as a general rule the red is not a good thing. Anyway late this summer walking outside ran across this. http://oneflyspictureplace.blogspot.com/2012/09/you-know-theyre-big-when.html Later I found an even bigger one whose legs were about an inch high.
I enjoy your posts and have learned a lot. I link to you because it’s good stuff. I happen to be in Atenas on a very low budget get the hell away from winter thing.
Love Atenas. That whole area is my favorite. We would drive our scooter from Grecia down to Atenas and up the old road to the beach (not the newer one Autopista Sol). There is a mirador we would eat at right outside Atenas on your way to beach.
This might be one of the most perfect memories I have of living here.
I like it here a bunch. I feel at peace for sure.
Well MY husband is also prone to saying dumb things (at any time) but it was him who took a look at your picture and stated that it was a banana spider and shuddered. He has a spider phobia (imho). I recently saw a spider of some kind run out of my sink and into the cabinet underneath. You would have thought we had been invaded by deadly aliens by the events that followed – involving a can of deadly bug spray and three people gingerly looking under the sink (but not too close because those things can jump and attack you with no provocation….(eye roll here). And we live in Mexico where one can expect these things. He is NEVER going to Costa Rica now, lol. But I will.
LOL… I can imagine him running around looking for spiders. Luckily, Costa Rica really isn’t too bad on these sorts of things. But I think my dreams of being a National Geographic photographer, (you know, the ones who lay on their bellies in the jungle to get a picture of the rarest red ant) are dashed. There is no way I am putting my lens in front of anything that will jump four feet into my mouth again!!
I think Rob gets a bad rap! LOL! Poor bloke just can’t help himself… Thank God he has you there! Thanks for the laughs!
I just read out loud this comment to my husband and he gave a big smile. “You see, I’m misunderstood,” he says.
But I’m letting the title to the post stand. I love the guy, even when he’s being an idiot. And you are right, thank God he has me to pull the reigns on some of his schemes.
This post dissolved me in uproarious laughter as I lay in bed reading it. My cat was staring at me like I’d lost my mind. I am so glad tho’ that neither of you suffered a bite. Tho’ that one symptom would have served Rob right! 🙂
Are you sure it’s my story that made your cat look at you like that? I just had a cat fixed and I swear he’s planning some Darth Vader type revenge. It’s quite unnerving the way he is staring at me right now…
Great googly moogly this gives me the willies! I am unreasonably terrified of spiders… so I’m simultaneously squirming in my chair and laughing like crazy at the last paragraph (I’m getting funny looks in the coffee shop…). Glad you both narrowly escaped death! And a painful erection.
I was a bit googly moogly as well after reading about him. But luckily, extensive pain was all that I would suffer from. I suppose that’s the bright side of this story!