Africa has BIG spiders

Thursday morning I was getting Jeff's lunch ready for his trip to Pretoria, where he had an all day meeting, which he was leading. I was trying to be a helpful and thoughtful wife as I poured his coffee into a travel mug, grabbed some naartjies(sweeter than oranges and way easier to peel) and went to get a travel lunch bag for his food to go in. I opened the door under the sink and began looking around. Couldn't find what I was looking for exactly, so I opened up the other door to look on that side, when I saw this crawling a few inches from where I had just been digging with my hands.

Picked this picture so you could see the size of him. AGH! Gross!

Note: not the actual spider (but this is the kind of spider it was)as I only thought about posting it today after all the trauma and drama. :) sheepish grin. 

I ran out of the kitchen screaming(not piercing but loud) more in horror that I had been so close to that thing that looks like it would eat my face off. Our new puppy Max, who you can see here, proceeded to jump out of the storage bin he was sitting in, while we house train him, and ran yelping into our bedroom, which is where I was running as well :). Asher slept peacefully through the entire ordeal, thankfully. We saw a spider like this guy(not as big as this one was) earlier this year in the back portion of our house and Jeff proceeded to kill him with half a can of Raid. I kid you not, it took half a can. So Jeff tells me to get the Raid out and spray this guy too. We found out this spider is the Huntsman spider and originally comes from Australia and is good for the garden (eats pests) but won't eat your face off. I chickened out of returning him to the garden as I was way too freaked out and proceeded to kill him with half a can of Raid(sorry bug lovers, I couldn't help it at the time I was way too freaked out to think logically). He finally died in a corner of the kitchen and after checking he was dead throughout the rest of the day, we had Jeff come in and sweep him up and out. There was no way I was even getting close to the dead body.

Needless to say I am calling the exterminator. I am fine with these guys cleaning the pests out of the garden, but not okay with them in my house, especially my kitchen. EWWWW!!!!

Any crazy/scary bug stories out there? Would love to know I am not the only one.