Arachnophobia

A little known fact about me.

Or a well known one.

I'm not really sure.

I am scared to death of spiders. I mean terrified. Just now for instance I was going to take Trouble and get the mail but when I opened the front door there was a spider, a little one maybe but looked huge to me. I had to close the door with a broom and forget about the mail. I can't go outside now. Yes, THAT spider was at the FRONT door but I can't go on the back deck and last Friday I saw a GIANT spider in the garage so I may not get to go out side...ever...again.

You may think I am joking about this but since the encounter at the front door I keep feeling something crawl all over me. And my sister told me she almost sent me a picture of a brown recluse bite. That folks, is just too much to handle. The idea of a spider even gives me the heebie jeebies.

I try REALLY hard to overcome my irrational fear because spiders outnumber me on this earth. I once unfortunately came across a statistic on the discovery channel that there are 100,000 spiders per acre of land. We have .9 acres and our house covers about 1800 square feet of that acreage, so you have to figure that there are 90,000 spiders in our yard and that our house has displaced a number of them, potentially making them very angry.

When I was pregnant, I LOVED being in our jetted tub. By the end of the pregnancy I lived in the tub and Ward made jokes that our children were going to come out with fins (think Arturo, Geek Love readers). Then one day, I saw a spider on the vanity. Just ignore it. I told myself. But then I walked to get a towel and he WATCHED me. I am not making this up and I am not crazy. I went to get Ward immediately to remove the arachnid. I do not kill spiders, my mother told me when I was a child that if you killed a spider someone you loved would die in return (she was sooo CONNIVING) so we just don't do it. Anyways, Ward went to move the spider outside and it attacked him and ran away from him and the poor thing had to be washed down the drain. I could bathe in peace again...until...A few days later I was taking a bath at 3 am and out of the corner of my eye I saw it. The same spider. OK, it was either the same spider who climbed out of the drain to seek revenge on us or we had an infestation of this particular arachnid. I stood up (yes, naked). I couldn't call for Ward he was asleep. I couldn't get out of the tub. I took the book I was reading, A Briefer History of Time, and did the unthinkable. Mudered a family member.

Then I felt compelled to look the spider up, it was small. It was red. It looked like a crab and walked like one too (sideways). As I looked them up in the middle of the night I started to feel like I do after a horror movie. I wasn't to get any sleep that night.

And before my children were born I feared, I mean really feared a spider getting in their crib and biting them and their crying and I wouldn't know why. I still fear this.

That movie, Arachnaphobia. I didn't know it was a comedy until I met Ward. I still think it's a horror movie and I still can't bear to watch it.

Ahh theres a spider on my scre