Today being Halloween Eve, if Halloween is important enough to have an Eve, I thought I would have some fun with spiders... er, I mean about spiders. I'm not nearly as terrified of them as I used to be, but still, there are limits.
I thought about doing this blog the other day when I took this picture. This spider has lived outside one of my kitchen windows -- outside being the operative word here -- since early spring. I have watched it since it was a tiny thing as it grew, caught bugs, repaired its web, and laid a jillion eggs.
I had no idea one spider could make so many little spider egg bags. I counted at least twenty on the eave above the web.
Since moving out to the country, I have had to become much more tolerant of insects and other creatures than I used to be, but it took a while before I could become comfortable letting a spider keep its home in my garden or around my house. I grew up with a father who was terrified of spiders and I learned his lesson well.
Once, when I first moved to Texas and knew I was going to die from having a huge tarantula bite me one day, I had to call my neighbor - a native Texan - to help me with this spider I saw on the room divider by my front entry. Mind you, I was a good 25 feet away in the entry to my kitchen, frozen in fear.
I kept trying to be brave enough to cross that line between my kitchen and my living room so I could face this monster alone, but my feet wouldn't move from tile to carpeting. So I had no recourse but to call my neighbor to save me. A few minutes later, she came in the back door and asked me where the spider was.
"Up there," I said pointing to the divider. "At the top of that post."
She walked over, looked around, then reached up. "You mean this?" she asked, pulling down a piece of tinsel left from Christmas decorations the month before.
Gulp.
I am proud to say that I am not nearly as phobic now, but I do draw the line on the spiders invading my house. As I write this, my husband is vacuuming two spiders out of the bathtub for me.
What about you? Are you afraid of spiders? Have any funny stories to share?
2 comments:
Uh, Maryann, you do realize that vacuuming up a spider does not kill it, don't you? You should empty the bag or container after your vacuum.
Helen
Straight From Hel
I am also terrified of spiders. In the fantasy novel I'm working on right now, one of my characters battles some giant spiders. I did that in an attempt to face my fears. However, now I'm having second thoughts. What if I got this book published, and it became popular enough to be made into a movie? (Yeah, that's a colossal if.) I wouldn't be able to watch the movie because it would have giant spiders in it. So I'm thinking of going back and having my heroine fight some other kind of monster. But I can't think of anything scarier than spiders.
In real life, I have no one to fight spiders for me. So whenever there's a spider in my apartment, I freak out for a few minutes, then force myself to calm down and find some way to kill it from as great a distance as possible. Anything to keep my hand from having to come within a foot of it. I've been known to use various sprays, sticks, and once even a hammer.
I still vividly remember a nightmare I had as a very small child. A giant green spider with leaf-like legs was attacking my cat, and my cat was fighting back heroically. I think I must have heard someone say the words "spider plant" and it scared me, although the spider's legs looked more like aloe vera leaves than an actual spider plant. I forget most dreams within minutes of waking, but that one remains sharper than most of my real childhood memories.
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