While I was elbow deep in cooking dinner last week, my son–heading out our back kitchen door–said, "Whoa…Mom… come look at what I almost walked into!"  By the tone of his voice, I knew to drop what I was doing to see what he discovered.

It was a spider web that stretched across the door frame, and Mr. Spider himself was perched at eye level (ready to pounce, I'm sure).

But this was no ordinary looking spider.  He had an usual shape, so I grabbed my camera to photograph him.  Isn't that what you would have done?

Thing is, I couldn't focus on the little devil.  I don't have a macro lens, and it was impossible for me to zero in on him–there wasn't enough contrast behind him.  Then, with me messing with it, I accidentally detached the spider web from the door frame and that sucker when flying!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Thankfully, he swung Tarzan-style to the adjacent wall, where I knew I could get a shot of him on the contrasting white frame of the window.

Still, without a macro, I could only get so close…and I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me.  As I took a series of shots (none of them great), he looked "different" than I remembered him seconds earlier.

And then I scrolled through the pictures and realized that mutha was poised to KILL ME!  I'm sure he was just waiting for the perfect moment to jump on my head, inject his poison, suck out my brains, and wrap me neatly in a cocoon of sticky spider silk.

That's what spiders, do…right?

Anyways, here's the first and last shot; I zoomed 'em a squillion times so I could share.  Can someone please tell me what kind of spider this is?  I mean, besides a mutant, brain-sucking, zombie-making demon spider.

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I swanee…between snakes last time and spiders this time, it kinda makes you wonder a) if I'm trying to scare all my readers away, and b) what in the world I'm going to post next

Hehe…well, I guess you'll just have to stay tuned………;)

UPDATE:  A shout out and thanks to Phil-the-Webmaster, who in spite of debilitating arachnophobia, correctly identified this terrifying creature:  it's a micrathena gracilis aka spined micrathena, which I'm pretty sure is Latin for "I'm going to kill you in your sleep." 

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