Rodents Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist.

I have something horrible to report.

My dear darling brother (obligatory Cleo reference? check.) is in the MTC on his way to the Philippines. I'm a sucky sister and I know it because I have yet to blog about him, blah blah blah. I'll get around to it, I swear. That's not the horrible part. For that, I have to share a portion of his latest letter to his favorite sister.

So I don't know if I already told someone this, but I'm going to tell you. (He knows me well and wants to share the following atrocity with me first for ultimate shock value.) I asked my teacher all about the Philippines and one of the questions that I asked was about how many spiders he saw. He told me that he saw tons, but not to worry because they all lived up in the power lines. When I asked how he could see spiders if they were all the way up in the power lines, he said "because they're about this big."

Now imagine your average 5'4" half-Chinese guy making as big of a circle as he can make with his birdie fingers touching and his thumbs thought, and then he opened it up about another inch or two. That was the size of the spiders he saw. (I want to throw up a little.) When I asked how a spider that large sustains life (life lesson I apparently forgot to mention to Tommy... don't ask if you don't want to know the answer) he told me that they eat birds. I'm going to go ahead and say that again for emphasis. FREAKING SPIDERS THAT EAT BIRDS! I wish I was kidding. Pray for me.

I am speechless. I am without speech.

I thought about googling "spiders, Philippines" to post a picture, but I think I'll save that fun little tidbit for later.

I'm bound to get a real-life giant spider portrait from Tommy in a few weeks.