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Warning. This post contains bugs. There are several reasons I don't live in Australia. It's far away, it would be expensive to move, and I don't know anyone. But one reason far outweighs all others, a fear more sinister and primal than any other: I'm scared of the Outback's huge spiders. Something about the environment Down Under breeds multi-legged monstrosities out of a Godzilla film. Spiders. in Australia fall into three general categories: big, huge, and downright Brobdingnagian. I know I don't like big spiders because I've had experience with big spiders. This is the story of the most memorable. It was the summer of 2013. I was the assistant technical director at the Pioneer Playhouse, an outdoor summer stock theatre about 45 minutes from home. The whole place was built basically by one guy, which is quite an accomplishment. In addition to the theatre itself, there's a dining area, an indoor theatre, the dorms where the company lives over the summer, and a replica Civil War village. Pretty much all of it is open-air; even the dorms, while they technically have walls, do a pretty bad job of keeping out the bugs. The Event occurred one muggy Kentucky afternoon. We were drilling and painting away, begrudgingly listening to AC/DC's greatest hits, one of only two CDs our boss would permit in the shop. Suddenly, a bloodcurdling scream pierced the air, originating from the dressing rooms. A couple of our crew ran back to make sure everything was all right, and we heard more screams and a very vocal expression of fascinated disgust. Our costume assistant had gone to use the toilet by the dressing rooms and found a rather unexpected surprise--a huge wolf spider waiting in the bowl. And when I say huge, I'm talking, like, 4-inch-legspan huge. It was big enough to brace itself on either side of the siphon when our scenic painter tried to flush it down. Its spindly little spider legs casually clung to the porcelain and it stayed right in the bowl. I didn't use that bathroom for a few weeks after that.
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