Susan H. Simko wrote:

OTOH, I was phobic about spiders.

Heh. I had a black widow as a pet when I was an adolescent. My
parents made me keep her in the garage, and one day I came home to find
her released (and probably smushed under my dad's shoe).

Standing and screaming was about as
much as I was capable of doing. Now, despite being truly terrified of
them jumping on me, I will scoop up spiders I find in the house and
release them outside. Slowly but surely... Of course, any wolf spider
that again stumbles into my house is a gonner.

I'll pretty much scoop up any spider and release it outside.
Though I tend to be pretty careful these days because I can*not* see the
violin shape one is supposed to be able to see.

cl

I've only ever seen one rattlesnake live and free. The guy was *huge*

Not a rattler, but the largest snake I've ever seen was crossing
the road as I was on the road home--in northern Chatham County--from my
army draft physical in 1972. (Thus, I remember both quite well!) My
friend, John, saw the snake start to cross the road, and he has the fear
that it will slither into the car somehow, plus I don't like killing animals,
so I stopped. By the time it's head was on the right hand side of the road,
its tail still hadn't hit the left hand side. I was amazed at how long it
was. It was also fairly large in circumference.

cl