My Scariest Spider
Posted: Saturday, June 12, 2010
by Jack H. Schick
It was so traumatic I blacked it outof my menory for eight years. My Mom reminded me of it when I was about twelve. I had a freaked out phobia of spiders through all my later childhood. I couldn't touch pictures of them in books. I couldn't open some books at all because I might accidentally see a spider picture that had especially terrified me.
I saw some huge brown, and I have to say bulbous again, ones when I was living in a mobile home on the sage brush prairie for ten years. Wyoming has a horrifying scorpion looking, orange or pink and white striped Wood Spider that really grossed out me and the kids. I still didn't kill it. I didn't kill the Black Widows we were infested with either.
There is a very good reason I don't kill spiders. First, I watched all the Dracula movies; poor Renfrow. He eats them because spiders suck insect blood and he gets all of it at one shot. Second, I'm an environmental Friend and a good Boy Scout. Waste not want not, I might eat spiders as survival food, so why kill them now? Also, my wife hates centipedes worse than anything but Drain Spiders. All spiders suck centipede blood, so let them live.
I got over my gristly fear of spiders, finally. I used to force my self to touch the pictures in nature magazines to get over the debilitating creeps. I learned to carry a walking stick in the woods in the summer. When a web along a trail enveloped my face and I could feel spiders crawling around trapped against my face, I was horrified and sometimes shrieked.
I was about twelve when my Mom reminded me of the spider incident I had blacked out since I was three. The memory came back instantly as if I was standing there looking at my own little shoes. I see it in my memory now, from above, like a out of body vision. I can watch me and my Mom, like a movie. I couldn't remember it at all for years but the terror was till there. It's was like I'd wanted to scream about something I couldn't remember.
To get the full idea of what my worst spider experience was, you have to know a few things about my Mom. She was a screamer. She had 'spells' and tantrums. Then she'd jabber on the phone to all of her social "group" women telling it over and over. There was probably a lot of histrionics and noise associated with my black out. I was just a little tyke and couldn't understand crazy women yet.
So, eight years later I remembered: I was in my Mom's bedroom. I saw a big bulbous spider scurry out from under the wardrobe. It went behind the door blocking my way out. I'd been told they were all poisonous (which they are-to an extent). I scrambled up onto my parent's bed, which wasn't allowed. I yelled for help. My Mom came in. She picked me up off the bed. I didn't want to put my feet on the ground!
I started hollering and pointing until she checked behind the door. There it was! In the corner; a big one. She shrieked! She stomped at it! It was headed my way! She stomped again and shrieked. It was going right by me! I can see my shiny brown Buster Brown clearly even today. I can hear my Mom's shoes smack on the linoleum tile. I see myself lift my foot and stomped on it as it ran by.
I quick moved my foot to see. A thousand little baby ones ran out it all directions and over my shoe. My Mom really started screaming then. She picked me up under my arms and threw me on the bed. I knew there were some still on my shoes. She stomped a couple on the floor and smothered others with her dish towel. One scurried across the bed spread, I screamed. She swatted at it a coupe of times then swiped it off to the floor and stomped it.
I remember her puffing and moaning like she always did; deep breaths and loud sighing sitting back on the bed. Her face was red and she was crying. I assume I was too. I blacked it all out about then, I guess. Later, I remember being wet and slobbery, and my Mom carrying me for awhile. I can still "see" the phone on the kitchen wall, with her telling friends about the Spider. Not until eight years late and a lot of "the creeps" about spiders did I remember a thing.
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Top-level comments on this article: (3 total)What a horrifying story, Jack! I'm not surprised you've been so freaked out about spiders all your life - that experience would terrify me as an adult. I hate that your mother behaved the way that she did and had no sensitivity to you at all.take it easy on my Mom- she wasn't the same after her first three babies diedShe was insane and drugger- she lost her first 3 babies and was nuts her whole life, hold her Spirit in teh Light. Friend, Jack
That does sound scary - I don't think I have every really had a terrible encounter with a spider.Thanks for reading and commenting
Hi Jack.So you were about four years old when that happened? Lord, that might be scary even now. People who make horror movies use that theme quit a lot and there is probably a good reason for it. You smack at the monster. You think you have killed it. But it comes back bigger or in greater numbers.Spiders have never bothered me. I don't know why. Dentists, now there is a real get-the-adrenalin-pumping fear for me. Stems from an experience I had when I was about your age. Unfortunately, I've never conquered it as you have with the spiders. Somehow, I don't think touching pictures of dentists is going to help me. :)My favorite spider is the wolf spider. They are big and fast and very smart. Then there are the little hoppy spiders (don't know what they are called). They do this little pawing motion with their front legs and if you make the same motion in front of them with your index and middle fingers, they will sometimes jump right onto your hand.I enjoyed your story quite a bit even if it did bring dentists to mind.Thanks, Jack.DianneWolf spiders scare me still. I don't like anything that can jump on me. Thanks fore reading! Friend, Jack
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