Confessions of an Arachnophobe
Murder at midnight .... a two minute story
It’s very simple, really. Concerning spiders, there’s a long standing rule in my home: Spiders can live with me as long as they stay behind the bookcase or under the sofa or in the folds of the curtain where they cannot be seen. Any spider who flouts the rule, or who never learned the rule, sorry to say, is summarily dispatched. No, of course it is not fair. I am not ignorant, I know spiders have work to do, and I know that nearly all of them are shy and harmless. They are even the best kind of house guests – they’re quiet, eat little, don’t leave a mess and don’t need to be entertained. Still…
I have lived a long life and I’ve encountered thousands of spiders large and small and none — not one, has ever harmed me. Yet the sight of one crawling up the wall is cause for utter panic. My heart races, I leap back as if confronted by a long-toothed tiger in the jungle. Fright and flight. A photograph of a spider in a book, sends a chill up my spine. If I walk down a path and wander through a hanging web, I break into an erratic dance of wildly flailing arms, ruffling up of hair, brushing down of sleeves, jumping up and down. I know that my reaction is totally irrational, and based on absolutely nothing. It just is.
Last night I walked into the kitchen in my slippers and flipped on the light to get a drink of water. A spider was sitting in the middle of my floor. Eeeeks! My hair stood on end and I screeched like a little girl in a cartoon. And then I murdered it.
I am very ashamed to admit that I stomped on it without a thought. I am even more ashamed to say how embarrassing it was to discover it wasn’t a spider at all. It was a raisin.
It seems that spiders wait until we turn out the lights, then sneak around at night. I wonder if, at those moments like yours when we suddenly light up the room if the poor little spider also shrieks when it sees us? I've never actually heard a spider scream...
Serves ya right. ONE kitchen spider is required employee. I do NOT like fruit flies. I cannot catch them myself. I hire that job out. My kitchen is clean enough for the health department and for company, but these little blighters are a bane. I have a little bird house on the middle sash of the window over the sink. I wrote "Charlotte" over the door. ONE sweet little jumper owns that ornament. Any others get safe passage to the garden with a glass to cover and contain, and piece of cardboard to slide gently under. Jumpers are little and fuzzy and cute, don't make webs, and just pounce on their treats. I don't think she cares that I'm in the same room. She stays off the floor and the counter. Ignores the cats. Mutual respect.