Web of Fear

Arachnophobia: An abnormal fear of spiders.

I’m not sure if I would classify myself as having arachnophobia even though spiders do give me the willies. Let’s just say that I have a healthy respect for them and want them at their distance, if they get to close I don’t run away but I always like to know where they are and thereby keep a watchful eye. Sometimes they can jump, and if they jump, I’m jumping to.

There is  a spider living on my front porch who only comes out at night and occasionally I’ll watch it as it weaves or continues to weave it’s delicate web. I have to confess that I did at one point try to dissuade it by sabotaging it’s web, not destroying it completely but by “unhooking” the bottom treads from the shrubs they were attached to so that if flapped like a flag in the wind from the top of the porch; the next night I went to see if it was there and I’ll be darned it the tenacious spider didn’t have it fixed and continued to weave it. I watched a few minutes as it worked away seemingly unbothered by my presence, bracing myself for a quick dash to the side in case it was one of those jumping ones.

I remember reading Charlotte’s Web when I was young and I don’t remember being nervous of spiders then, in fact my brothers and I used to catch spiders albeit in jars and watch fascinated by them. I wonder if my mothers fear of spiders slowly rubbed off on me. I don’t remember when I started to be weary of them, all I know is that now they give me the creeps  – I’ve shivered several times in the writing of this post just thinking about them and even jumped a little when I saw a little black blur move across my desk from the corner of my eye, which incidentally was only a fly. Where are the spider webs when you need them?

I have to say that movies like arachnophobia don’t help. Although I’m an adult and have seen that movie more than a dozen times it still get’s me even though I know what’s coming. Would that mean that I’m a masochist? A sucker for punishment? I don’t know, but as long as they keep their distance, I’m cool with them.

Cory