The Realization

Many years ago, I became arachnophobic. I don't exactly remember the turning point. I was born in California with spiders everywhere. There are black widows, tarantulas, daddy long legs, scorpions......and a plethora of others as many states do. I recall my mother warning us of black widows. As a child, I don't remember every running into one. I do remember having daddy long legs in our house. They would hang from the ceiling watching our every move. Mom would call them "Herman". Every room we went to, if there was a daddy long leg, Mom would tell us it was Herman and we weren't supposed to hurt him, he was harmless.

My arachnophobia increased when I moved to Michigan as a young wife. Michigan had dungeons also known as basements, dark, dingy, scary dungeons. My husband's family owned an old two-story house that we lived in complete with a full sized dark, damp, cold, web infested dungeon. That was the only part of the house I didn't want to go in. It was scary to me, but the washer and dryer were down there, so I had to go. I would put a bandana on my head and put on an overshirt and head to the cellar armed with a broom to brush down any cobwebs in my path. I feared they would be infested with creepy crawlies and they might fall or jump on me. The basement was very dusty, so there was always cobwebs and daddy long legs down there.

When we sold the property many years later, we were cleaning the basement and I forgot my bandana. My seven year old son thought it was funny that I was afraid of these little creatures. He found a dead daddy long leg and pulled the legs off of it, when I came out of the basement, my son threw this legless spider in my hair. I asked him what it was that he threw at me, he said with a grin, "it was just a dead spider mom". Fear instantly struck me as I pulled the rubber band from my hair and shook my head around frantically trying to free the arachnid from my long locks. My son started laughing and said it didn't have any legs and it was dead. I had the creeps for the rest of the day not knowing if the spider was still stuck in my hair. The realization of being arachnophobic struck me clearly on that day.

Now, I live back in California, I have many run-ins with different spiders. Too many to tell about. I treat each run-in with respect and dignity of an arachnophobic as I throw things out of the way or yipe when I see it or scatter from the infested area to be free from the fright.

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