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Crouching spider, hidden web

An arachnophobe… someone who thinks their world would be just fine without spiders. That’s me.

I admitted that I don’t have an official diagnosis. It’s not like one day I went to the doctor with strange symptoms of fear of spiders and he said, “I’m sorry, Amy, but you have arachnophobia.” And yet, I have no doubt that I am afraid of spiders.

Phobias are like that. I understand, intellectually, that in the vast wilderness of Albany, New York, I will probably never find any spiders that can really harm me. But the phobia-fear has nothing to do with logic or reason. It’s about going crazy.

I know, I know… spiders are wonderful creatures that eat nasty flies; weave enchanting and mysterious webs and save poor doomed piglets named Wilbur from unexpected deaths. But put one on my arm and I’ll instantly transform into a whirling dervish and blow your eardrums off with weird, multi-toned half-screams reserved for just such an emergency. Then, after the spider has been thrown off my arm, we’re talking 30 minutes of recovery time which involves checking the rest of my body thoroughly for any other possible hidden spiders, shaking like a dog to dislodge said hidden spider and scanning the immediate area in intense paranoia that slowly subsides along with my elevated heart rate and blood pressure.

I spent much of my childhood and adolescence in the tireless pursuit and destruction of spiders. I have no spider-focused traumatic event to blame for my phobia; it was simply always present. The very idea of ​​the spider… so many different shapes, sizes and behaviors! Tiny brown ones lurking suspiciously in the corners. Delicate grays that crawl for illicit purposes along the walls. And worst of all: some chubby blacks that jump without warning!

I didn’t mind so much if they were outside and not too close, but a spider in the house was completely unacceptable. There was no stay of execution on these hapless arachnids.

Ah, but the means of execution was a problem worthy of the great thinkers of our time. Once I discovered a spider, of course I couldn’t GET CLOSE (unless, by some blessed miracle, I found one on the ground and had big boots on, in which case I’d stomp on it wholeheartedly). The proximity was dangerous and reckless.

Out of necessity I became a brilliant strategist. Usually the spider would be plotting his evil in an upper corner of the room, too high up to reach even if he wanted to. Knock it down with a broom? No, that presented the possibility of her escaping from him, or worse, falling on me. I would curl up on the edge of the bed, watching her, thinking… planning.

Finally a breakthrough. HAIR SPRAY! Being a teenager in the ’80s, of course he had a lot. And my technique seemed infallible. Spray the spider from a safe distance and quickly back away even further. The hairspray would paralyze the spider, making it fall over and with no chance of escape. And oh, it worked, okay. With large spurts of hairspray marking the walls and ceiling. I once used a lighter with hairspray and actually set a chandelier on fire into oblivion.

Needless to say, my immaculate mother was NOT a happy woman.

Speaking of my mom: Why didn’t I just yell at mom or dad to come over and do the dirty work? I tried, but to no avail. My mother had no patience with my phobia.

“Spiders don’t hurt anyone,” he said with logic and certainty. “Leave them alone and they will leave you alone.”

If only. No big brother or sister (or little one either, for that matter) to help. A father who could have helped but was in his own apartment since the divorce. A battle fought alone.

One day when I was 16, my worst fears came true. She was in the shower with her head leaning back in the water to wash my hair. I opened my eyes for a moment and what I saw almost made me lose the contents of my bladder. There was a spider traveling slowly but directly on its little invisible Batman wire RIGHT OVER MY HEAD.

My mother took the stairs three at a time when she heard the screams. Amy has fallen, broken bones, bleeding on the floor, stabbed by an intruder!

When he flew into the bathroom, he found me wrapped in a towel, tears streaming down my face, sniffling, shaking, and doing the willie dance.

“WHAT HAPPENED THAT?!” she screamed.

My answer? One point to the shower stall, the water keeps running. “A HOPE!” I quit.

When I moved two years later to attend college 90 miles away, I can’t say I cried much.

I always wanted to calm my phobia, I really did. I heard somewhere that immersion is useful. You know, if you’re afraid of the water, jump right in, that kind of thing. But the idea of ​​deliberately placing a spider on my person was out of the question. I worked for a pet store over summer break in college and thought maybe I’d TOUCH their resident tarantula. No. Don’t go. And yet, I would literally wear a baby ball python around my neck all day like a necklace. No problem. Collecting crickets from her tank to feed the customers’ reptiles wasn’t easy (they’re pretty creepy, too), but that’s another story.

He even had a car that seemed to happily present itself as a haven for lewd spiders. She constantly found them setting up her residence on the inside of the windshield. I had two or three near death experiences while driving, trapped in the car with the object of my greatest fear. I seriously considered ditching the car altogether one day when a spider crawled out of sight behind the dash. With as much sense of humor as I could muster, I named this car Charlotte. Last year, I gave away Charlotte for a song and upgraded to a spider-free vehicle (knock on wood) that I promptly named Samantha.

I managed to get to the point where I was able to scoop up a neatly rolled half roll of toilet paper, reaching my arm out as far as possible to squish the spider into the paper and drop it lightning fast into the toilet, flushing. . to a watery grave. This technique got me through most of college without serious incident, though I still yearned for a partner in crime I could pay a dollar or two to ‘remove’ the offending spider.

Then came my post-college roommate and best friend, Gina.

Gina, Buddhist, friend of all creatures… including spiders. This, of course, presented a problem. She would yell spider and she would come running, but she would not kill.

“I’ll catch him and let him out,” he offered.

Fine fine But often the quick little bug would jump out of the paper trap she had designed and escape. And although I would retire to a far room during this operation, she timidly entered and admitted that the eviction was unsuccessful. Thus the liar clause was born.

“If you lose the spider, you have to tell me you have it outside,” I said demandingly, “and you have to sound convincing.”

To this day, I have no idea how many of those spiders were evacuated from our apartment. I only know that my blessed mind was kind enough to believe the lies that I myself had created.

My sweet cat Sugar is curled up on my lap as I write this. Are there people who fear cats like I fear spiders? Is someone writing an article titled “Crouching Cats, Hidden Litter Box” while petting their pet spider? I shudder to think about it.

Now I am married and live in our first house. My husband, my bad luck, he is another spider lover. (Why all these spider defenders?) I’ve only killed two spiders here so far, not bad considering the house is 50 years old and comes complete with a base, the traditional habitat for spiders of all shapes and sizes.

But I still have my moments. While preparing the finished part of our basement for a surprise party, I saw the shadow of a spider in the corner. It was HUGE… but then, maybe the light just made it look huge. God, where was I? I turned different lights on and off to try to determine which one caused the shadow. I cautiously looked around corners and behind fixtures, but to no avail. The shadow didn’t move at all and wouldn’t go away. Finally, I pulled a container of Styrofoam cups off the shelf, and lo and behold, the shadow disappeared. She put the cups on the counter. The shadow returned. The shadow wasn’t cast by a spider at all, but by the wisp of plastic accumulating on top of the cup holder. No one witnessed this, so I recount this incident at the risk of merciless ridicule.

I know, however, that it is a small price to pay to give freedom fighters a voice. Arachnophobes everywhere live in fear of the eight-legged. The creeps are alive and well, my friends. We need to join forces against the enemy! We need to rally people to our cause!

We need serious therapy.

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