wanted to eat my fig!
Almost as big as a penny 

  wow that's a big one.

Is it a black widow? 

Looks like the ole Female Black Widow identified here in picture with that hour glass feature  -http://www.termite.com/spider-identification.html

and this info -

 Venom toxicity - the Black Widow Spider can inflict a painful bite which can be fatal, especially to the young and elderly. An effective anti-venom was developed in 1956.

Did you find a bunch of small brown spiders in the area? Probably dead more than alive...

Holy cow, Martin!
I found it in between large bark pieces that I put around the figs to keep the moisture in.

I found one on the front step a few years back. I kept her in a big jar with a stick for habitat for about 6 months. Whenever I found a bug in the house they faced the Widow, she was really good at eating other spiders. Eventually she made an egg sac which I promtly removed. By late winter we had no bugs around and she eventually starved to death.

Nice thread title btw.  :)

Thanks, Calvin!
What if you put 2 of them in the same jar? 
Will I have some spider war going on??? 
Wow! I feel like Calvin from Calvin and Hobbs now :)

they usually run away pretty fast.. most of them run away before i squash them.

Only a guess, but I would say widows are territorial and one will die.
If you put a spider in there which isn't a widow, it will be lunch. I did have one other variety of spider that was pretty smart though, it was able to live in the same jar as the widow for about a month without getting eaten. It was very careful not to touch any webbing it didn't create. Then one day I put an ant in the jar, and when the other spider ran out and attacked the ant, it made the mistake of touching the widow's web..that was it's last meal.

At night time black widows are much easier to find and they don't hide as quickly even when using a flashlight.  I use a wasp spray (I prefer the spray sold by Home Depot in a black and white can) to spray black widow spiders.  On my last "hunt" a month or so ago I probably got about 8 of them.  I just don't like taking chances with them so I try to be proactive.  Their webs are stronger and somewhat sticky so it's easy to tell when you have one nearby when you run into their webs.

Harvey,

What happens to a spider when it gets sprayed? Does it die right away or eventually?

After you mentioned the webs, I checked my yard and can see 3 or so different kinds.
1 is located low, right above the ground. After checking the wiki it seems those belong to the nastiest spiders (the widow is one of them).
2 is in the trees, those spiders seem to be more or less harmless to humans.
3 is something in between. The webs are on the fence and house.

Man... because of the figs I will definitely learn more than I ever needed to know ! 

It dies in about 15 seconds.  I don't kill other spiders, just the black widows.

scarey stuff! i have seen giant furry spiders here, that measure 6'' across, big enou to get out the gun for. i thot those were black widows, but i guess not these look big enou to eat a mouse.

A few years ago at dusk, I pulled a log off of my woodpile without gloves, and a black widow crawled across the back of my hand.  She didn't bite me but I still jumped about 3 feet in the air.

Used to see lots them at the back of my property where it's wooded. Not anymore. But in July, saw several Brown Recluse in the firewood pile where it is also at the back of property. Did not kill any of them since they are no where close to the house.

Navid.

Navid,
Where did they go?

Blue muddauber wasps eat primarily black widow spiders, so I'm pretty tolerant about their nests.

Black Widow and Brown Recluse are two kinds of spiders I don't leave alone when I see them.  Though I see them rarely, I don't tolerate them sticking around near the house -- just not worth the risk with little kids around.  Thanks for the tip about the wasp spray Harvey.  (I wonder if it'd work on a brown recluse too?).  Most of the hairy big ones don't have venom that's nearly as nasty as those two (despite their appearance).

Mike