The men in my life can tell you that I have acute arachnophobia, although I don’t think there is anything “cute” about it! My husband, Alan, can tell you my reactions to spiders have come close to inducing heart attacks for both of us. Unfortunately, my passionate reactions to arachnids have given my son reason to think spiders are in the same category as a murderer. I wish I could rid myself of this ridiculous fear but it has gotten worse as I have gotten older and also has begun to include just about all bugs.
The origin of my fear of spiders goes back to my very early years. When I was a toddler, I would spend a lot of time at Nana B and Pop-pop’s house. Nana can still vividly recall how I would cry and scream at the daddy long leg spiders that were constant fixtures on the foundation of their house. She tried using reverse psychology on me by calling them her pets. It didn’t work.
My phobia hit an all time high point when I was about six, outside skipping rope in our driveway. It was a warm sunny day and I couldn’t be happier because I was outfitted with my famous black patent leather Mary Jane shoes and white bobby socks trimmed with lace. These were essentials in my wardrobe and my favorite things as a young girl. I wore them as much as I could because I had naturally curly hair and everyone told me I looked like Shirley Temple. We both tap danced – she on a movie stage and me on any available fireplace hearth. This was the closest I was going to get to stardom. Anyway, I digress. So there I was in complete childhood bliss until I was interrupted by a slight tickle on my right ankle. I looked down to see a very large daddy long leg perched on the lace of my sock. What happened next is fuzzy in my memory probably due to the huge surge of adrenaline that coursed through my little body. I am quite certain I screamed at the top of my lungs and, as it is unfathomable for me to have simply bent down to pluck it off my sock, began to run at top speed around the front yard. I’m not sure where or when the spider fell off but I’m sure it was mocking me with delight wherever he was.
It was on a crisp autumn Sunday during a church service that Dad became the sole believer in my theory that spiders are out to get me. The large sanctuary had a vaulted twenty five foot ceiling intentionally making one feel small. While singing a hymn I saw in my peripheral vision a gossamer thread briefly revealed in the sunlight hanging down from that impossibly high ceiling. My eyes followed the thread to the end where it was – the maker of that thread. Because the web strand was so long, the spider swayed in a slow pendulum fashion about two feet in front of my face. Dad was standing next to me, took notice of my peril and bumped my arm with his elbow. Before he could utter the word “spider” I whispered, “I know.” He shook his head and stifled an incredulous laugh. After the service was over, he tried to explain to me the mathematical odds of a tiny spider descending from such a height to perfectly hanging in the space between the person in front of me and my face. I just asked, “Do you believe me now?” He answered with an incredulous but confident, “Yes.”
I don’t remember if I told Alan while we were dating that I was extremely afraid of spiders or if he found out through experience. One regretful recollection was the incident of the spider in his Jeep. It was dark and getting cold so he put the heat on. The blowing air from the heat must have stirred the nasty thing from its sleeping den in the vent. For retribution from waking it from its dreams, it marched across the dashboard towards me. I thought it was going to bite my head off. I screamed at the top of my lungs while at the same time ripping my seatbelt off and doing a back flip onto the backseat. Retrospectively, dealing with the spider might have been a little smarter and safer than testing Alan’s driving skills on an already challenging narrow and traffic filled road. He had no idea why I was acting like a crazy person and thought my scream was because we were going to get into a car accident. Since he did not even see the spider and therefore could not kill it, I remained in the backseat until we got to our final destination.
It certainly was not fancy driving skills but only a miracle that saved me from another stealthy vehicular intruder. The day before the death defying encounter, I was over a friend’s house for a party and as it was mid-summer I left my windows down with the sunroof opened so the car would stay cool. The revolting creature gained easy entrance to my car this way. This was a mistake of epic proportions that I would never EVER repeat again in the future no matter how hot it is. The creature hid somewhere because I did not see it on my drive home that evening. The next morning on my commute to work, I spotted it on the rear-view mirror and quickly proceed to climb down my decorative paraphernalia hanging from the mirror. My hand was its obvious next destination. The thought of having that spider touch my skin was so appalling that one thought pervaded my brain – get the blaggard out of the car! I cannot explain how there was not a single car around me during Monday morning rush hour on a three lane highway. It had to be God’s protection for surely what I did next warranted serious injury to myself and others. I jerked the wheel to the right without looking behind me to get to the shoulder which meant crossing two highway lanes. Once there, I got out of the car and found a long stick, got the creature on it and flung it into the brush. I was proud of myself of actually getting rid of a spider on my own. It wasn’t until I got to the office and calmed down and returned to rational thought that I realized I could have killed myself or worse, someone else by my stupid move.
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