I think it is time for me to share with you a story very near and dear to my heart; the story about why I am afraid of spiders.

Let me start off by saying that I wasn’t always afraid of spiders, I was never very keen on them but I didn’t freak out on site about them. I just thought they were disgusting. Living in a wooded area with a canyon in my backyard, naturally we have lots of spiders in our house. About every three months or so, a giant spider pops up in a very inconvenient time or place. Normally in my room and most recently in the bathroom. They just show up out of nowhere and they are ridiculously huge. Honestly, it just makes me want to yell at them “Where in God’s name have you been hiding all this time to grow that freakin big!” When I say big, I mean big. Most people don’t believe me, these guys are so big, you can’t really squish them because they would explode and create a black hole due to its collapsing mass. Seriously, they are too big to squish.

So my story begins about three years ago at midnight. I was the last person up doing homework and watching some T.V. when I finally returned to my room to go to bed. Low and behold as I go to my closet for clothes do I spy a huge spider in the crook of my doorway. So I back out slowly, an evil plan forming in my mind of all the devious ways I could squish this giant sucker. I grab a big book and sneak back over to my door.

Side note: the picture of the spider above, this one in my doorway from so long ago was much bigger.

So I wryly look down upon this spider and smile knowing soon it will be dead and I can sleep soundly tonight. So I smash the book against the door frame and grind it in a little just to make sure it is dead. Just as I am about positive the thing is one hundred and ten percent dead, this monstrosity climbs over the top of the book and up my arm. At first I didn’t do anything because I was so shocked but then instinct kicked in along with a lot of cursing. I fling my arm back trying to get the thing of me as I am screaming and listing of a laundry list of profanities. Then I think I feel it on my back, which I realized was my pony tail only after I ripped off all of my clothes trying to find the spider. After the inital horror subsided, knowing the spider was not on my person, a new horror dawned on me. As I turn around and follow the trajectory the spider must have followed after its sudden flight from my arm, I find my bed right in the line of fire. After desperately searching the floor to find the spider but to no avail, I am forced to acknowledge the fact that, that monster spider is somewhere in my bed right now.

Yes I know, Karma right, this is what I get for taking a small amount of pleasure in killing this spider.

So I frantically rip off all of my sheets meticulously searching for the spider. In the end nothing. I found nothing, anywhere. I searched every foot of my room but couldn’t find it. Let me tell you something, I never found that spider. Never. The only thing I ever found that may have been the spider was a small crinkled ball of something I tried to convince myself was indeed the dead body of that spider that haunted my dreams. All so I could sleep soundly in my bed again without jumping at the slightest tickle on my legs. Thinking that it was that horrible spider that got away.

I never got over that thing, so to this day I am horrified by spiders. So every time one of these giants shows its ugly head I scream like a little school girl and run to my dad to go squish the big meany spider.

So to all of you arachnophobes out there, I am right there with you. Oh and here is another creepy spider shot, just to make you cringe. I know I will.