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Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 8th, '19, 04:08
by JosieQ
My fella has a theory about spiders, rats, and snakes. The theory is that you can hate/be scared of all three, but no one is NOT scared of one. The primal fear is buried in our lizard-brains, and so far of all the people we've questioned, no one has NOT had a thing against at least one of them.
Of course we haven't gone to the internet!
So tell me internet, is there anyone out there who has completely bested the human condition and achieved the pinnacle of evolved forward-thinkingness? Would any of you be completely fine befriending and handling a snake, then a rat, then a spider? I'm sure you're out there people, and if so, what DOES get you? (I mean along the lines of smallish mostly-harmless that don't threaten our modern ways, like a bat or a cockroach, not like man-eating sharks and such.)
I personally like rats and snakes. Absolutely loathe spiders.
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 8th, '19, 14:09
by Sanssouci
I have no problem with snakes as long as I know they're not venomous.
Wild rats can be scary if they're in your house. But I have no problem with them outside or with pet rats (I have 4 pet rats).
I think spiders are very useful but yucky, and I don't want them touching me.
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 8th, '19, 21:02
by Moi
I LOVE snakes. I catch them a lot in my backyard.
I think rats are cute because they're small and fluffy.
I am creeped out by spiders, though. I don't hurt them, and they're fine as long as they're not on me.
When I was a kid, a friend of my dad's put her boa constrictor or python on me and I liked it.
We have little rats around where I live. I caught one and put it outside. They're not scary-looking and it was terrified of me, so I didn't mind picking it up.
I have held and petted tarantulas before. I guess if someone had one as a pet and it wasn't out to kill me - I'd hold it.
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 8th, '19, 23:35
by JosieQ
I've had pet rats too, and they are adorable. I've never had a snake but always wanted one.
Yeah... for some reason tarantulas don't really bother me either. I guess it's like the bigger the spider, the more it becomes like a proper animal rather than something small that can squiggle up your leg and into your clothes. D:
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 9th, '19, 04:28
by Akili Li
I'm good with spiders and snakes, and
pet rats (mostly), but wild rats are definite nightmare fuel for me.
When I was little we watched a documentary on hantavirus which was creepy enough, and then there's all the historical fear of plagues which one of my history teachers casually mentioned was mostly spread via flea bites, and that rats were often carriers, and even it wasn't true it just piled right onto that fear-center in the back of my hindbrain.
But what really cemented it?
Er.
I'm going to spoiler this, because it's definitely nightmarish.
Spoiler
Talking to a mortuary assistant whose favorite debate was whether it was harder to cover up rat damage or cat damage on human corpses.
Apparently the cats will eat a human slower, because the rats will sort of call in other rats and they'll swarm a corpse and eat it down pretty fast, but a cat will guard the kill more. Also according to him, cats will often start up near the face but the rats will go straight for the guts, which is easier to hide. So he would go back and forth.
And then I made the mistake of getting drunk once at a bachelorette party when I was sitting next to an ER worker, and mentioning my nightmares about this.... and ended up listening to all the times she'd treat transients for injuries that were rats feeding on them, if they'd taken the wrong thing (apparently they always blamed "being drunk" even if it was clearly a stronger drug) and passed out in the wrong place.
She says they treat cat scratches more, but she'd never seen a cat actually try to eat a living human, and she'd treated plenty of people that rats had tried to eat while they were still alive.
She also talked about dogs, but it's usually really clearly the human owner/trainer's fault when it's dogs, and not so much the animals (with rare exceptions), so that one fortunately didn't add new nightmares.
And for whatever reason, I'm good with cats. I know they can be psychopathic sadistic monsters, but I'm good with them. *shrug*
So. Y'know.
Definitely afraid of rats.
(I try
really hard to make an exception for pet rats. It mostly works.)
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 9th, '19, 07:24
by JosieQ
Great stories! And by GREAT I mean horrifying!! XD
Yeah it is a bummer when things try to eat you and you're not even dead yet. I mean, super rude.
My rats I would ring a little bell and they'd come running out for treats and were little darlings! They never tried to eat me, but then they weren't free range rats so...
Unfortunately my fella and me both have a thing against spiders, because we clearly didn't think the relationship through. Definitely shoulda paired up with someone who could handle them, because it's a big ordeal whenever one of the little bastards shows up in the house.
Although I will say, he usually sucks it up and does the removing. Once there was a huge one that got in, like a hand big if you spread out her legs, giant body, just straight outta a horror film. He tried to bash it with a broom and it got on the broom, and so I quickly opened the door and he hurled the whole broom out into the street.
He's basically a superhero, is what I'm saying. Mayor should give him the keys to the city. If they still do that. If there are still mayors.
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 9th, '19, 09:14
by Akili Li
Facing up to fears like that is absolutely superhero material!
I don't know of any current city that still has a wall around it where they actually lock up the gates every night and open them in the morning (unless you count jails/prisons as separate cities? But they don't leave those unlocked during the day anyhow), so I'm pretty sure the whole keys-to-the-city thing is firmly in the past now.
But we do have mayors -we could make him mayor.
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 11th, '19, 03:32
by Moi
I think tarantulas kind of start to enter cute and fuzzy territory, so they're not as scary.
I know you didn't mention them in the first post, but the thing that scares me most is roaches.
I remember screaming and running away from one and my aunt was like "You're not afraid of rats, but you're afraid of roaches >>?"
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 12th, '19, 05:15
by Metapod
I'm not scared of either of the 3, to be honest. Snakes have pretty predictable behavoire and just want to be unbothered, Rats are super cute if pets or just an annoying pest if wild, and spiders won't bite you if you don't touch them.
I think it's because they're all waaaaay smaller than me though. I am easily terrified by any larger animal, like large dogs or horses.
Although I gotta say after reading Akili Li's post, I would be way more scared of rats if the ones nearby still carried some horrible plagues.
Re: Snakes and rats and spiders, oh my!
Posted: Apr 12th, '19, 09:06
by Nankuii
Not that I HATE spiders, but I can't stand seeing them. I could handle snakes and rats fine, as long as I'm not touching them lol But even saying the word spider scares me... I freak out even with the smallest ones
Moi: There was this really "cute" and animated spider and I freaked out when I saw it :(
I especially can't do taran....- I can't even bare seeing the word spelled out *shiver*