An arachnophobe… someone who believes their world would be just fine without spiders. That’s me.
I admitted that I do not have an official diagnosis. It’s not like I went to the doctor one day with weird spider fear symptoms 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 could really harm me. But fear-phobia 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 out your eardrums with bizarre, multi-tone half-screams reserved for such an emergency. Then after the spider has been thrown off my arm, we’re talking 30 minute recovery time which involves checking the rest of my body thoroughly for any other possible hiding spiders, shaking like a dog to dislodge said hiding 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 tirelessly chasing and destroying spiders. I don’t have any spider-centric traumatic event to blame for my phobia; it was just always there. The very idea of the spider… so many different shapes, sizes and behaviors! Tiny brown ones that crouch suspiciously in the corners. Delicate grays that crawl for illicit purposes along the walls. And worst of all: some chubby blacks that jump out without warning!
I didn’t care 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 for these hapless arachnids.
Ah, but the means of execution was a problem worthy of the great thinkers of our time. Once I saw a spider, of course I couldn’t GET CLOSER (unless, by some blessed miracle, I found one on the ground and had big boots on, in which case I’d wholeheartedly stomp on it). The proximity was dangerous and reckless.
Out of necessity I became a brilliant strategist. Usually the spider would be planning his evil in an upper corner of the room, too high up to reach even if he wanted to. Knock him down with a broom? No, that presented the possibility of him escaping, or worse, falling on me. I would curl up on the edge of the bed, looking at her, thinking…planning.
Finally a breakthrough. HAIR SPRAY! Being a teenager of the 80s, of course he had a lot. And my technique seemed foolproof. Spray the spider from a safe distance and quickly retreat even further away. The hairspray would paralyze the spider, making it fall with no chance of escape. And oh, it worked, all right. With large streams of hairspray marking the walls and ceiling. I once used a hairspray lighter and actually burned a chandelier to 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’ll 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 had been 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, teary-eyed, whimpering, shaking, and doing the willie dance.
“WHAT HAPPENED THAT?!” she screamed.
My answer? One point to the shower stall, the water is still running. “A HOPE!” I quit.
When I moved two years later to attend college 90 miles away, I can’t say she 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 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 during college summer break and thought maybe I would TOUCH their resident tarantula. No. Don’t go. And yet, I would literally wear a baby ball python around my neck all day as if it were a necklace. No problem. Collecting crickets from her tank to feed the clients’ 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 installing 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 all the sense of humor I could muster, I named this car Charlotte. Last year, I gave Charlotte away for a song and moved into a spiderless vehicle (knock on wood) which I promptly named Samantha.
I managed to get to the point where I could pick up half a roll of neatly rolled toilet paper, reaching as far as I could to squash the spider on 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, although I still longed for a partner in crime who 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 scream spider and she would come running, but she wouldn’t kill.
“I’ll catch him and lock him out,” he offered.
Good good But often, the quick little insect would jump out of the paper trap she had designed and escape. And though I would retreat to a far room during this operation, she sheepishly entered, admitting that the eviction was unsuccessful. Thus was born the liar clause.
“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 Sugar cat is curled up in my lap as I write this. Are there those who fear cats as I fear spiders? Is someone writing an article titled “Crouching Cats, Hidden Litter Box” while petting their pet spider? I shudder thinking 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 advocates?) 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. As I was 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 he? I turned different lights off and on to try to determine which one caused the shadow. I cautiously looked around corners and behind fixtures, but to no avail. The shadow did not move at all and would not go away. Finally, I pulled a container of plastic cups off the shelf, and lo and behold, the shadow disappeared. She put the cups down on the counter. The shadow returned. The shadow was not cast by a spider at all, but by the tuft of plastic that had accumulated on top of the cup holder. No one witnessed this, so I report this incident at the risk of being mercilessly ridiculed.
I know, however, that it is a small price to pay to give freedom fighters a voice. Arachnophobes everywhere live in fear of eight-legged creatures. The creeps are alive and well, my friends. We need to join forces against the enemy! We need to rally people for our cause!
We need serious therapy.