You know what topic is NEVER helped by research? Spider identification. Spider websites are horrible, horrible places, mostly because they come with pictures. Pictures that neither soothe nor gently explain anything to the panicked spider observer.
I have a few unrivalled dislikes buried deep in my soul and my dislike of spiders is in the Top 5. Make that Top 3. I don’t have Arachnophobia because I don’t have “an irrational persistent mental preoccupation…that interferes with daily functioning and social activities” but dang, I’m not all giggles about them either!
No, my reaction to coming across a spider in my otherwise clearly bug-free home is more along the lines of gasping, shrinking back in horror, and shrilly calling for my husband (the spider wrangler in our relationship) in a voice that even I don’t recognize. If I’m left to deal with the intruder by myself, I grab something heavy and owned by my therefore soon-to-be EX-husband, and I whack at the devil until I can be pulled off or until I’m completely sure that it won’t be continuing its residency in my house. I find that I’m usually shouting, “DIE YOU BASTARD, DIE!!!!!” while I’m doing it. But there might be other things I shout too.
Then I have the willies for the next 4 or 5 days and continue to glare at the spot with suspicion for up to 3 years.
I’m not frightened by the Daddy Longlegs spiders of our youth and even now will agree that one can hang out on the ceiling in the bathroom (furthest possible corner only—he knows where the line is) if I’m racing to grab a shower before heading out for the day. But those guys are like gangly 12-year-olds who can be ‘taken down’ with the same amount of effort as is given to ridding a window of a mosquito who can’t figure out which side of the glass he’s supposed to be on. However, those plucky jumping spiders or the brooding wolf spiders or even the common, but no less intimidating, house spiders unsettle me completely.
The Experts suggest that a fear of spiders is the result of some sort of traumatic childhood episode, but I think that’s nonsense. Just LOOK at spiders! THAT’S all you need to explain our exceeding discomfort with these…these…bugs. They’re all weird-shaped-body and long (sometimes even HAIRY!) legs.
So. Many. Legs.
Through my somewhat limited travels, I have seen several spiders in unexpected places, and when I look back on these unpleasant interactions, I realize that I have more of a crystalized memory of the spider encounter than I do of the country/city/town that I was visiting. However, not all dramatic encounters happen elsewhere, I’m sorry to say.
Every year in Vancouver, we have what we refer to as Spider Month. Sometimes we also call it August. Our environment out here is somewhat bug-limited, and we get lulled into a sense of safety and denial, and maybe that is why Spider Month has such a polarizing effect on us and the carefree lives we think we live.
We may well walk through spider webs all the time, but during the month of August, spiders seem to up their game. Spider webs start being spun at face level rather than at ankle or waist level. There are cobwebs strung across the front door, in the car, between partially drawn curtains, in the bedroom closet, and spanning the frame of the small window in the kitchen. Outside, they hang like multiple strings of jewels across a good percentage of the shrubbery each morning, block the path through the front gate, and dangle from random tree branches.
Last August (oh, it still seems so fresh!), I came far too close to a huge black spider on the wall in front of my desk. It happened while my husband was away on a trip. Since I was therefore alone in the house, I first had to freak out for a bit in order to vent a portion of my outrage and alarm before logically weighing the odds of whether I’d have to do something about him (the spider, that is—I’d deal with the husband later!).
Although I was mortified at the thought of having to deal with a menace of that size on my own, I just couldn’t handle the thought of him scurrying away into some hidey hole in my room while I stood by watching and wringing my hands. I had to act!
I grabbed the Hoover and, showing a great deal of previously untapped courage, used it to suck that spider up 6 feet of hose and into the vacuum bag, all the while yelling my spider-removal battle cry. He barely fit up the hose! Or so it seemed at the time. I left the vacuum running to discourage any chance of escape while I decided what to do next.
It took me a good 15 minutes.
Not wanting to cavalierly believe that he had been dispatched through the trip up the hose alone, I was forced to entertain the thought that he might still be alive in there. My only course of action was to leave the hose attached to the vacuum (although I did finally turn the unit off) and to securely tape over the open end so that if he crawled back through the length of the hose, he couldn’t get out.
I congratulated myself on planning for every eventuality and was content to leave things in that manner until my husband arrived home to deal with it further. Two and a half weeks later. Who vacuums when their spouse is out of town anyway?
There isn’t enough therapy of any sort that could change my instinctive over-reaction to spiders and regardless of the fact that they may be more afraid of me than I am of them (which, by the way, can NOT be the case), I will always view those creepy 8-legged arthropods with the horror and disgust they so rightly deserve.
Happy August.
