I was out the back today and turned on the pool filter and this enormous Huntsman spider was floating belly-up in the pool, waving its legs around trying to flip over. This thing was not the biggest I've seen, but at least the size of my palm with legs outstretched. There's a definite size threshold with those guys. I can tolerate anything probably half that size or smaller, but once they get big enough for me to see the hairs on their legs and their freaky little papillae that's it, rational mind out, phobia takes hold. I watched in morbid fascination as it lazily twirled around and around in the filter current. I splashed a little water on it thinking I might be able to swamp it and break the surface tension of the water so it could either drown or right itself, but seems it was too big. I left it twirling for a while, then my conscience got the better of me and I flipped it over so it was at least the right way up. They can often run across the water's surface that way. But alas, it was already underwater too much. I watched as it clung to a leaf and was repeatedly sucked underwater in this mini whirlpool, then floated to the top again, tried to get to the side, got sucked under again, spinning around in tight circles, flipped over, struggled to the top of the leaf again, left the leaf for a moment making for the side, got sucked down again, found the leaf, clung to it again, floated around a bit, trying to get above the surface of the water, got sucked down and spun around again.... you get the idea. I was sitting there watching it touch two legs to the wall, then lose its grip and be swept under again and I'm going "Come on, spider, nearly there!" but as much as I've seen it suffering enough and have finally switched from wanting it dead to wanting it to survive, I just can't make myself go help it. Apparently I'd rather see a spider die a slow and terrible death than risk it either touching me or showing up somewhere in or on my house in the next few days.
In the end, it took it over an hour to die. I'm a bad person! I tried to tell myself it was a creature of the night and wouldn't last long if I fished it out, tired as it was and surrounded by potential predators, but that wouldn't have stopped me if it had been a mouse.