Friday, October 13, 2006

Spider

I hate spiders. Actually, I hate all types of insects (I know spiders are not insects). So imagine my horror when I found this in my closet as I was about to go do laundry:



I was too freaked out to focus correctly but you can see the spider was big enough to cast a shadow at the back of the closet several feet away. Ugh! There was also a huge web about three feet across; I'm glad I didn't run into it face first. After taking the picture, I found the nearest magazine and smacked the spider in midair. It landed on a chair, stunned, so I flicked in on the ground and smacked it a couple (ok, eight) more times. Just to be sure, I picked the spider up with a paper towel and flushed it down the toilet.

Shirley used to make fun of me all the time about my fear of spiders and bugs. Each time I saw a spider in the house, I used to make her get rid of it. I think Shirley had a "pet" tarantula as part of an undergrad psychology experiment at UCLA so she has no fear of spiders. However, she had extreme dog phobia. I remember one time we were walking on the beach path in Long Beach when we saw another couple with two small dogs in the distance. When Shirley realized that the dogs were unleashed and running towards us, she screamed and jump on my back. As the dogs got closer, she tried to climb higher and put a death grip around my neck. I recall saying, "If you keep choking me, I'll pass out and fall down and the dogs will get you." Mercifully, the dogs lost interest and wandered off in time for me to remain conscious.

To this day, I avoid the 2nd Indiana Jones movie so I don't have to watch the walking/crawling through insect scenes. That and the little Chinese boy was really irritating. Needless to say, I would suck on Fear Factor.

2 comments:

Darryl said...

Wow... Lucky you. My cat had escaped into the back yard yesterday, and in chasing it to get it back into the house, I ran between a fence and garden shed, face first into a huge spider web.

It was pretty gross. I highly recommend against trying it.

Darryl said...

I guess sometimes you get the spider, and sometimes the spider gets you!