More on Spiders

I hate spiders. I don't mind the wispy ghost spiders or tiny weightless ones. Daddy longlegs, or harvestmens, don't bother me either, but they're not spiders, or 'the most venomous spider in the world, only their fangs aren't big enough to bite through a human's skin,' as the urban legend tells it. Fact is daddy longlegs don't even have venom glands or poisonous fangs of any kind. And while they are Arachnids, they're are not considered a spider.

The spiders that bother me are the ones that sprint out of some dark corner or crevasse running like track runners in a one-hundred meter dash, across the carpet or cement floor for no apparent or guessable reason. They're the juicy ones. The ones that freeze when they see movement, a towering mass looming closer to them or my foot slamming the ground next to them. I hoped to stop them long enough for Grandma or Pop Pop to come over and squish them. As much as I hated them, I didn't enjoy watching their exoskeleton pop under the pressure of a rubber sole, I hated hearing the crunch more. But I had no other choice. I was too afraid to attempt to bring it outside with flimsy paper and a plastic cup. What if it crawled is way out onto my hand, crawled up my arm, in my shirt?

Those spiders, the ones that freeze mid-stride as soon as they're detected, in any position, seemed more intelligent that the other skinny-legged, small bodied spiders. They thought thinks over, stared back up at me as I stayed fixed on their plump, filled out bodies. They were too big.

Another myth, that at the time kept me up at night, goes like this: At night, spiders crawl on your bed and sometimes find their way into your dark, cave-like mouth, stupidly make their way inside where they soon die and get swallowed and digested. This happens statistically, based on how many spiders typically inhabit the dark corners of rooms, about eight times a year. Everyone eats about eight spiders a year.