Spiders are the Worst

Spiders are the worst. They really are. They're creepy and crawly and thinking about them makes me shutter with disgust. They're just plain terrifying. I hate them. 

I don't know why I fear them so extremely, but I do. And I know I'm not the only one. Most of my fears are rather irrational when it comes to the little buggers, but I can never talk myself out of it. I'm afraid of what evil plans they're constructing while I'm sleeping, and that they're just hiding behind the picture frames on my walls, waiting for the lights to go out and then they come out and put their conniving plan into action. I don't know what the plan is, but I have a feeling it's just to scare the living daylights out of all the humans they can find. And it's certainly working.

My first response to seeing a spider is like the episode from Supernatural (Yellow Fever) when Dean is infected with "ghost sickness" and becomes afraid of EVERYTHING...specifically the scene when they're searching the abandoned factory and a cat jumps out of the locker at him... you know the one. Well let's just say that this is me with spiders:

And you know what? NO SHAME. 

The WORST possible situation is when you're in the shower, suds-ing up and relaxing under the rain of warm water, enjoying the few minutes you have to not be doing one of the hundred things on your daily to-do list. You're working the shampoo into the roots of your hair with your head leaned back and suddenly your eyes b-line to a dark spot on the ceiling. You're paralyzed in fear and your heart races like it's trying to run away but your body doesn't follow suit. You can't break eye contact with it. You think that maybe it's vision is activated by movement like the T-Rex in Jurassic Park...

Dr Grant: "Stay perfectly still. His vision is based on movement."

So you stand, perfectly still, not even blinking. And then it moves...The moment it does, your mind interprets it as this:

I'm not going to lie and say I haven't jumped out of the shower with shampoo still in my hair because of a spider. My body has a 'flight or fight' response for a reason. And it will always choose 'flight', because, you know, spiders kill. I know how to choose my battles wisely, and a brawl with a spider is not one I'm willing to commit to. I know when I've been beaten.

Ultimately, when I see I spider, the first thing that comes into my mind is that it's going to somehow get on me. It doesn't matter how far away I am from it, I know in that instant, it's a possibility. A BIG possibility.

Picture from Hyperbole And a Half

 I mean, really, why SHOULDN'T I be afraid of something with 8 legs that constantly defies gravity!? It would be irrational if I DIDN'T find them terrifying! 

And I don't care that I'm 40,000 times bigger than the spider. I don't care that it's brain is the size of a pin point and my brain weighs 3 lbs and is rather smart, if I do say so myself. ;) I don't care that I could essentially smoosh it in 3 seconds and the whole thing would be over with. They creep me out to no end and I'm pretty sure spiders are vengeful by nature, so the family of whatever spider you kill would come after you like the Godfather. And there's always a chance that you somehow don't kill it all the way (because they have special powers, you know!) and it falls off the wall, crawls under your bed, and bites your foot in the middle of the night for revenge. (Personal experience) 

Not only that, but their DNA evolves in super-spider mode because they no longer die when you spray them with Windex! For years and years, a girl's only defense against the nasty eight-legged things was that she didn't have to get that close to kill them! She could spray them with chemicals from a safe distance and know that it was dying quickly. She didn't have to worry about getting close to it with a shoe and the spider flinging itself off the wall and onto her hand before she could smash it! Nope! She could remain a safe distance away from danger. But now that's over! They've evolved past our ability to spray them with blue liquid that makes your windows super sparkly! Those bloody buggers.

Left without a defense or a viable weapon against them, is it any wonder I choose to run away? Unless of course they're in my bedroom...then it's going down. Sure, okay, I might squeel and jump around a while, but that's an instant reaction one cannot hinder. Even Channing Tatum is afraid of spiders and that's saying something!

It's okay Channing Tatum, I'll hold you.

Eventually I get up the courage to take care of business, but only because I cannot sleep in a room that I know a spider occupies. It just won't happen. I've heard the urban legends, I am no fool. Still, that being said, spiders are the absolute worst. They're a plague on our beautiful planet and if I could, I'd eradicate them all! (Except of course, it would throw off the whole circle-of-life thing, so I guess we have no choice but do deal with them.)