Jump to content
aberdeen-music

Cactus Lovers?? Beware!


Benji

Recommended Posts

Cactus?

Be careful what you bring back from holiday

A true story and its source was the Australian Quarantine Inspection

Service in Adelaide.

A bloke and his family were on holidays in the United States and went to

Mexico for a week. An avid cactus fan, the man bought one-metre high, rare

and expensive cactus there. On arrival back home Australian Customs said

it must be quarantined for 3 months.

He finally got his cactus home. Planted it in his backyard, and over time

it grew to about 2 metres. One evening while watering his garden after a

warm spring day, he gave the cactus a light spray. He was amazed to see

the plant shiver all over, he gave it another spray and it shivered again.

He was puzzled so he rang the council who put him on to the state gardens

people. After a few transfers he got the state's foremost cactus expert

who asked him many questions. How tall is it? Has it flowered? Etc.

Finally he asked the most disturbing question. "Is your family in the

house?" The bloke answered yes. The cactus expert said get out of the

house NOW, get on to the front nature strip and wait for me; I will be

there in 20 minutes.

Fifteen minutes later, 2 fire trucks, 2 police cars and an ambulance came

screaming around the corner. A fireman got out and asked "Are you the

bloke with the cactus?" I am, he said. A guy jumped out of the fire truck

wearing what looked like a space suit, a breathing cylinder and mask

attached to what looked like a scuba backpack with a large hose attached.

He headed for the backyard and turned a flame-thrower on the cactus

spraying it up and down.

After a few minutes the flame-thrower man stopped, the cactus stood

smoking and spitting, half the fence was burnt and parts of the gardens

were well and truly scorched. Just then the cactus expert appeared and

laid a calming hand on the bloke's shoulder. "What the hell's going on?"

he says. "Let me show you" says the cactus man. He went over to the cactus

and picked away a crusty bit, the cactus was almost entirely hollow and

filled with tiger striped bird-eating tarantula spiders, each about the

size of two hand spans.

The story was that this type of spider lays eggs in this type of cactus

and they hatch and live in it as they grow to full size. When full size

they release themselves. The cactus just explodes and about 150 dinner

plate sized hairy spiders are flung from it, dispersing everywhere. They

had been ready to pop. The aftermath was that the house and the adjoining

houses had to be vacated and fumigated: police tape was put up outside the

whole area and no one was allowed in for two weeks.

image0011129vr.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I fucking hate spiders. To the extent that I just lifted my feet up off the floor in case there were any massive things like that crawling on the floor.

Me too. I don't care if it's a hoax or not, my skin is crawling just thinking about the possibility of my being anywhere near a spider that big. Eeergh!

I'm such a girl sometimes :(

Link to comment
Share on other sites

why do people persist in repeating these "true" stories when a quick search on google shows them up to be complete bollocks?

Every time it's repeated we're a step closer to ridding the world of the threat of your neighbours buying a giant cactus full of spiders and causing your house to be fumigated.

No one wants that.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My ex next-door-neighbour has McBeans coffe shop, and used to grind coffee beans in his garage. I once took in my washing from the back green and found a very unusual, massive, coffee-bean looking spider lurking in amongst my socks. I suppose I SHOULD have contacted somebody to check it out, but I just ejected it out the door into Holburn Street, swearing in a high-pitched voice (me, not the spider). Fortunately nobody was reported dead due to spider bites!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...