In which I admit one of my greater phobias

So yesterday afternoon I was innocently sitting in my computer chair, leaning forward a bit and surfing the web. And my shirt must have ridden up a little bit, exposing my lower back, because suddenly I felt this sensation like something tickling my skin. So I craned my head around to look, and LO and BEHOLD. All I saw was BIG BLACK, HAIRY-LEGGEDNESS. A GIANT SPIDER was sitting on MY BACK.

Alright. Let me pause here a moment to explain something to my dear readers. I have this nice little condition, which, according to dictionary.com is:

a·rach·no·pho·bi·a n. An abnormal fear of spiders.

This means that spiders and I, uh, we do not play well together. Notice the word “abnormal” in the definition above. We are not talking the kind of spider-fear that every little girl has when she squeals “Ewww!” at big bugs; no, we are talking the kind of irrational fear that makes me feel like I have been punched in the stomach if I accidently stumble on the picture of an arachnid. It’s really truly that bad. Don’t tell me I’m exaggerating, because I’m not. If any of you are also arachnophobic, you know what I’m talking about. (Quick story: One time I when I was probably about twelve, I was at one of my best friends’ house looking at her (illustrated) copy of the latest Guinness’ Book of World Records. I was happily browsing the pages until I stumbled on the entry for “world’s largest spider,” a color photograph of which took up half the page. I was so startled that I actually SCREAMED OUT LOUD, dropped the book on the floor, and stood there panting for about a minute. This is when my friend started believing me about my arachnophobia. )

So anyway, fast forward to yesterday afternoon. There I was, locking eyes with this monstrosity for what felt like ten minutes but was actually probably 0.5 seconds, because before the thought “I should probably sit still till I can find something to squish it with” could pass through my synapses, I had leaped halfway across the room and screamed, flinging the beast off of myself. When I realized that this meant he was probably on THE FLOOR or on MY BED in or HIDING IN SOME CORNER waiting to come sit on my face in the middle of the night, I proceeded to hop around my room yelping in an admirable imitation of someone who has just stepped on hot coals.

Panicked, I ran out into the living room to find Mom. (Another quick story: Mom is the designated spider killer in our house. Interestingly, Dad has a case of arachnophobia as bad as if not worse than mine; this makes me wonder if a phobia can be hereditary.) I quickly related the whole of what had happened to Mom while trying not to hyperventilate. So, armed with a flashlight, she marched into my room to look for this sinister creature. After a few minutes, she was trying to console me by saying that the spider wanted to avoid me as much as I wanted to avoid it, but the thought that it was hiding somewhere in my room was not especially consoling.

Just when it seemed there was no chance of finding it, Mom noticed a large black bug skittering across the floor towards my door. Only, IT WAS AN ANT. GROAN. I realized that in my haste to get as far away from my attacker as possible, I had not actually taken the time to confirm that it was a spider; it could easily have been an ant. Now, granted, the fact that there was a giant ANT crawling on me in my room is not that comforting, but it is certainly better than the alternative.

So there’s your “laugh at Erin” story for the day.

Posted on Friday, March 17th, 2006 at 3:27 pm.
Belongs with: Silly Things.
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