RANT- Do spiders have a high IQ?

My new house is an arachnophobic's nightmare. Daily batterings are commonplace and can occur at a moment's notice within my household. I have found these sneaky petes in towels, shoes, counters and cupboards. Don't get me wrong-I am not scared of these 8 legged creatures. I mean let's use some logic here. I'm much bigger. I have thumbs. And I'm not scared to use a fully loaded flip-flop. BUT this spider that you see in the image to your right is the grand-daddy Einstein of them all. Yes, that HUGE spider, called a fishing-spider(even though it lives in the woods DUH!) knows how to play dead. I kid you not! Let me repeat myself---It knows how to play dead.
Give yourselves a minute to think that over and let the willies subside before I continue with my traumatizing experience.

My cat, Mr Millie(yes,we thought he was a she and then after a year we had to give him some dignity,hence, the Mr.) whose scared to death of the vacuum(even when it's not on) and a slight wind, was playing with this bohemoth abomination. Upon seeing this, I silently prayed in earnest, please let that be a big cricket. It wasn't to be. So, I did what any normal person would have done, I grabbed a shoe and slapped it a good one. Now poor Mr. Millie has been scared of me for the past three days, but I got it(or so I thought)..I reasoned to myself that this creepy thing with thick hair like a Greek man's ear would surely be poisonous. No arachnid is that big and hairy and not lethal. So silly me, I go get a paper towel to pick it up and I proceed to examine it two inches away from my face. I look at it's markings. Any normal person would've flushed it. Not me. I wanted to know exactly what I was dealing with. I mean there could be a nest of them right?
I place it down on a hat box under a window to get better light. I make a mental note of the markings and go search on google for Pennsylvania spiders. I'm calm, it's dead. I'm logical, just want to know if it's poisonous but I'm not sure about some of the markings, does it have small brown bands?...mmm, let me go see. I reach the doorway and I find that spider hobbling, rather quick like on my hat box...No sir ree, impossible! It had been all scrunched up and still when I ...shudder... held it up my face for a good look. Wishing i had flushed it, I took a step towards it and reached for my trusty flip flop. As soon as that spider sensed my movement, it immediately went into dead mode. Now explain to me...Is this normal? What kind of spider does this? Needless to say I pounded that SOB so hard my hatbox has a huge dent. Not only that but I flushed it...
2 times.
So people if you live in the woods of Pennsylvania, and you come across one of these so called fishing spiders, and you can't bring yourself (either due to stupidity or lack of weaponry) to slap it 20 times and flush it twice, run for your lives. Although I have come to find out spiders do not like glass cleaner, so that might do in a pinch. But don't worry, I was considerate enough to call the entomology department at Penn State to let them know that I have some gargantuan smart ass spiders living in my house and that I would be more than willing to donate any they would find to research.
They haven't called me back yet though.