Woman Driving Home From Work Realizes She's Not Alone

It’s been said that, at any given moment, you’re probably no more than a few feet away from a spider — the implication being that most are too small, well-hidden and harmless to ever actually be noticed.

But such was not the case for Australia native Bianca Merrick. Recently, the spider nearest her was pretty much unmissable.

Turns out, at some point a very large arachnid (reportedly a huntsman spider, who are actually pretty friendly and harmless) had managed to get inside Merrick's car — where he then proceeded to make his presence be known as she drove down the freeway.

"I was on my way home from work when I looked up and saw it staring at me," Merrick told 7News. "I considered stopping but I didn’t know how I’d get it out of the car so I thought the best option for me was to keep driving and pretend it wasn’t there for the longest 20 minutes of my life."

In other words, to her credit, Merrick took a live-and-let-live approach to the situation. It's clear from her video of the encounter, however, that she'd still prefer to have been elsewhere.

Once at home, Merrick said, she got out, locked the car and went to sleep, preferring to "pretend that it never happened." And sure enough, that cool-headed approach paid off.

By the next morning, the creature in her car had evidently moved on. Upon checking the vehicle, Merrick said, "there was no spider to be found."

While chances are that Merrick would not love reuniting with her "scary" stowaway again in the future, how she handled things that day proves that a peaceful approach to spiders can go a long way — leaving both Merrick and her eight-legged passenger happily unharmed.

After all, even giant spiders like this one are worth being saved ...