Well, I wasn’t really afraid of anything until this point of my life. Well of course it started off as a beautiful spring (I didn’t have allergies back then) morning. Sun was shining, birds were chirping you get the picture. It was about 20 or so minutes before our family was to go to church and my older siblings (boys of course) thought that it was a wonderful and amazing idea to go look for rolly-polly’s (call them pill bugs, potato bugs, etc.). As they were common under rocks where I lived so, we went out and were having a grand time when suddenly a piece of my hair moved at the top of my head just out of my sight of vision. I didn’t think much of it I mean it’s hair. A few seconds later it moved again. And again. I still didn’t think of it with wind and all. Now heres the most terrifying part of it all. A spider. CRAWLS DOWN MY FACE. I’M LIKE 4-5 YEARS OLD. And a daddy long leg too. Said to be one of the most poisonous spiders in existence but, with too tiny mouths to actually do anything (if my brothers are to be believed). I’ve never screamed so loud in my life. My brothers immediately turned around to see the ginormous spider on my face and think that it’s so incredibly cool that I have been chosen to be the one whom a spider should crawl down on my face (sorry that was worded weird) so, they start patting me on the back and asking me if they can pet it and what its name is. At this point i’m crying but I don’t really know what to do because theres a spider on my face and what do you do when you have a spider on your face? So I just stood there and cried. My brothers (thankfully) took the spider off my face and I ran toward the house bawling my eyes out. Ever since spiders have just terrified me. And my brothers were (and are) really no help. I have heard stories of my brothers friend’s cousin’s other cousin dying because a brown recluse bit him. And in 2nd grade we were learning about them and were told of a spider that bug spray has no effect on. “Bug spray only makes them madder” they told us. They made forts of webs and ate their prey whole. The most poisonous spider in the world lives in Australia and makes its web in the toilet so you have to check before you go (even though i live in the US i checked the toilet for MONTHS afterward). The biggest in the world is the camel spider. One even eats birds! One digs holes in the ground and waits for mice and other unfortunate small things to fall in and.. you get the picture. I. Was. Petrified. And again in third grade we were reading an article about spiders. And it included ‘wonderful’ full color pictures of spiders in bubbles they made themselves; them in lakes, ponds, and other small bodies of water. One kid found out that I was afraid of them and promptly cut out all of the pictures of the spiders and taped them to the inside of my desk. Never reached in there until my friend kindly removed them. The next traumatic experience was when I was 12. I was on a camping trip with my church youth group and we had cabins and a deck. None of that was so bad until I noticed a very large and very terrifying spider the size of my fist just hanging out on its web. The entire week I didn’t step foot on that deck. The last day of camp I got the brilliant idea of spraying it with bug spray (of all things) hoping to kill it. It (unfortunately) didn’t die but did writhe quite a bit (which gave me the delicious feeling of power – sorry if that was really dark). One girl who was ‘one with nature’ if you know what I mean, felt bad for the creature. She wrote me a note asking kindly if I would not do it again. I felt quite nauseous reading it. Now empathy is not hard for me to feel but, empathy for a SPIDER is something I cannot do. Sorry. My father is also not the best person to go to if you wish to kill a spider. He thinks they are ‘wonderful things’. A blessing of all things. The next story to tell is actually kind of funny (at least to me). I was sitting down on the ground, my back to the wall. My friend is sitting opposite me and suddenly she freezes and is like, “dude, there’s a spider right by your head” and I was like, “lol Kayla stop playing” and she was like “no there LEGITLY is a spider next to you. So I look over and there, on the wall next to me, Is. A. Spider. So I flip out, grab my shoe and kill it. Multiple times. I’ll have you know that spiders’ blood is not blue. It’s quite clear. Kayla and I later named the spider ‘Peter’ (sorry to all Peters out there reading this). And how Peter’s remains are still on my shoe along with the carcasses of many other spiders I have met. I hope that this bit of writing gives you light as to how it’s like living in constant fear of spiders. Thank you for your time and I apologize for any spelling or grammatical errors. Thank you.
One Word: Spiders
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