Life as an Arachnophobe

[kaasirpent]

I can find the most spectacular . . . ly stupid ways to hurt myself. Yeesh.

So, I go to lunch, today. About four miles down the Interstate from where I work. As I was leaving the parking lot of the restaurant on the way back from said lunch, I had to wait to turn out of the restaurant parking lot onto Peachtree road. It's very busy, and it's raining, so I realize I'm going to be there a while. Probably at least until the nearby traffic light changes to red.

I see something moving out of the corner of my eye.

Inside my window. The driver's side window.

I look. It's a spider. Not a tiny one, but a good-sized one. Body and legs together a bit less than the size of a dime. Basically about eight inches from my head.

My instinct on seeing a spider that close to me is FLEE RUN GET AWAY DANGER EXIT SAVE YOURSELF or something to that general effect.

Unfortunately, there are extenuating circumstances:

• I'm in a car


• I'm driving said car


• On a busy road


• Wearing a seat belt

So, what essentially ends up happening is that the left side of my body flinches away violently and attempts to be on the far side of the right side of my body. I immediately get a muscle pre-cramp (it doesn't cramp, but it eventually will because I've Moved Wrong™) in my left side (between two ribs—very painful) and I feel like something is very wrong down around my lower back. This takes about one microsecond. Meanwhile, traffic has died down and I could turn, but I can't turn, because if I take my eyes off the spider, it will jump on me, run into my clothing, bite me, and I'll die. (Call it an irrational fear all you want; doesn't make any less real to me.) It crawls up the window toward the top. I reach out to toggle the switch to cause the window to automatically open. Every nerve in my left arm is saying FLEE RUN GET AWAY DANGER EXIT SAVE YOURSELF.

Then I think, "If I open the window, the wind will blow it on me and I'll die. So I start hunting around the car—blindly, remember, because I can't take my eyes off it—for something I can use to keep the spider from getting on me.

Meanwhile, the light has changed red and there is no more traffic coming, but all I have eyes for is the damned spider on my damned window. I'm vaguely aware that someone is also behind me, waiting to get out of the parking lot, too.

I find a piece of paper and roll down the window about an inch. Rain spatters in. I use the paper to try to keep the spider stationary with respect to the window opening. Unfortunately, as I mentioned, it is raining and rain comes in . . . and the spider is not propelled outside the car through the open-by-one-inch window.

Of course not. Because that would be too easy. No, the spider falls inside the car. Past my left shoulder. Down to where I can't see it.

My entire left side tries once more to swap position with my right side, with about as much success.

The OH person SHIT behind SPIDER me ON toots ME their FLEE horn. I RUN turn GET pretty AWAY much DANGER blindly EXIT into SAVE traffic YOURSELF and SPIDER somehow—I ON don't ME remember ON how—work ME my ON way ME over ON ME to ON ME the ON ME left ON ME lane ON ME because ON ME I ON ME have ON ME to ON ME turn. I'm frantically looking for the spider because it's still in the car ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME and is out of sight and therefore on me. And probably looking for an opening—any opening—to get inside my clothing so it could bite me and make me die. I will defend my logic until my dying day. ON ME.

I'm very glad there were no cops on Peachtree because I was in my lane and the one next to me. I almost hit an orange road-construction barrel because I was too busy looking for the spider (that was on me) to notice things like oncoming traffic or inconvenient traffic laws.

Finally, the light changed green and I was able to begin turning from Peachtree onto the on-ramp for Buford Highway.

Which is when I noticed the spider, again. Crawling up the door from wherever it had fallen (Not on me! Yay!). I watched it while incidentally not wrecking my car trying to navigate traffic and merge.

It rested for a very long moment on the window toggle-thingy, meaning I could not roll down the window. Also, I could not touch the door. Because if I touched the door, it would jump on me, run into my clothing, bite me, and I'd die.

It then crawled up the door some more, and crawled into the recessed door handle. So if it didn't come out . . . well, I guess I'd have to just use the passenger door to get in and out of the car. Or maybe just sell the car. Or burn it. Those are the only logical solutions. Because once I got out of the car and lost sight of the spider, the entire car was its lair. And . . . well, I like the car, but flames kill spiders. It really is the most reasonable course of action.

Luckily, it finally tired of that spot and began crawling upwards again, toward the window. When it was almost to the glass, I quickly punched the toggle to lower the window all the way and then jerked my hand off the switch, lest it jump on me, crawl into my clothing, bite me, and cause my death.

Rain was coming in, getting the door and me at least a little wet.

I grabbed the same paper as before and used it to flick! the spider out the window. At the same moment (you'll notice here that since I'm using both hands to manipulate the paper and the window toggle that neither hand is on the wheel, right?) I punch the toggle and the window begins to roll up.

Yay! The spider is now on the outside! It can no longer jump on me, crawl into my clothing, bite me, and cause me to die.

Except . . . wait. It didn't fall off. It's clinging to the rubber seal. I'm only going 35 (and royally pissing off the people behind me who want to go 60 or 70 (speed limit is 55)) so I speed up to 55.

Spider still on rubber. 60. Spider still on rubber. (I can probably get out of the car at work using the passenger door, because now the entire driver's side of the car is unusable. Possibly forever.) 65. Spider—yes! Spider now clinging only with two legs while others flap in the wind.

And . . . success! Spider blows off. Somewhere between where Peachtree exits onto Buford and where Buford exits onto I-85N. Probably less than 2 miles.

The entire sequence of events I have described here took . . . maybe five minutes. Tops. I have no recollection of driving part of that distance because spider spider spider spider ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME ON ME.

I post this because I hope it gives people without phobias a little better understanding of how all-consuming the phobia can get.

My side aches from the pre-cramp, and at some point during the evening, it'll probably cramp for real and hurt like eight kinds of hell. I probably did pull a muscle in my lower left back because as I type this sitting in my office chair at work, my lower back is throbbing.

Yes, I could have used the paper to smash the spider. Why didn't I? Were you not paying attention? Because if I had done that, it would have crawled up the paper, gotten ON ME then into my clothes, bitten me, and I would have died. No amount of calm, rational thought trumps the fact of this. Sorry.

Why didn't I calmly pull the car over and take care of the situation? Were you not paying attention? To do anything "calmly" would have required rational thought. Which was pretty much not happening for several minutes.

This post has been brought to you by my arachnophobia. I hope you "enjoyed" it.

I also hope that you will understand when I never speak to you ever again if you even joke about putting a spider on me in real life. Not kidding.

Comments

[jocosa]

I feel bad for laughing at your re-telling of those most HORRIBLE events. But, yeah, I did.

I am sorry that you had to go through that though. Hopefully the expected incoming pain will be much less then anticipated.

[kaasirpent]

I try to make these retellings amusing; without humor, it would be pretty uninteresting. :)

I guess maybe it's my way to try to make fun of myself a little. I know it's irrational, but... :)

[temporus.livejournal.com]

I have a healthy respect for spiders, which is to say, I prefer to keep them not on me whenever possible. While my reaction to one in the car is not so severe as yours, I will usually keep an eye on them, you know, "just in case."

My wife, on the otherhand, has a rather similar reaction to yours. I don't recall if I told this story at VP, so forgive me if it's a repeat:

Back at our old apartment which was essentially a small apartment above someone's old garage, we used to get these big spiders. I'm talking at least as big as a 50 cent piece. They hung out there, because the outdoor lights were all on motion sensors that were way too sensitive, and all the bugs at night would swarm the lights making it an arachnid's smorgasbord. Well one evening, my wife is heading out to work, and as she gets into the car, one of these spiders lands on her. She freaks, brushes it off immediately, but as it is dusk, she can't tell if the spider landed in the car or outside the car. (The door was still open when this happened.) Panic ensues, whereby she gets out of the car and back in the house and up the stairs in something on the order of a land speed record. She checks herself out in the light in the big bathroom mirror and she's safe and fine.

But she has to get to work. So after getting herself back under control she does the only thing any arachnophobe that *must* get back into the car would do. She grabs a can of Raid(tm) and EMPTIES the can of raid into the car. Not one drop of lethal chemical death is left unused. She used so much, we went months driving around with all the windows open in that car. This was fall, the smell of it didn't die down until spring, and ever after that you could always smell it. If not overpowering. I'm surprised it didn't set off her asthma.

When I questioned her on the necessity of using the entire can, instead of a couple of long sprays which would be enough to kill just about any bug she had the best answer: "There's a reason it's called an IRRATIONAL fear!"

[kaasirpent]

Indeed! It might have been holding its breath with just one or two spritzes. (And don't give me that scientific stuff about breathing differently than we do. They can too hold their breath.)

I had one of those 50-cent-piece spiders in my kitchen once at an old apartment when I came home from work. I coated its body with Raid and watched while it convulsed and died. It took a long time. And it was so big and meaty that I could hear it thrashing around on the linoleum. After I was very, very sure it was dead, I used the longest extension on the vacuum cleaner to vacuum it up. Then I sprayed more Raid into the vacuum, let it run to make sure it was in there and in there good, and then blocked the opening and left the vacuum cleaner for . . . maybe three weeks?

Just to be sure.

I moved not too long after that. I'm all for nuking the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[dchenes.livejournal.com]

(That deleted comment was me, because the cat stepped on the keyboard.)

Anyway, what I was saying was that there was a spider on my living room ceiling for a couple of weeks last spring. I decided that what I really needed was a set of cat-sized suction cup boots, because Lily knew that the spider was up there, but she couldn't get up there to do anything about it.

[kaasirpent]

Spiders seem to delight in skittering about on the ceiling above my chair and my shower, especially. I hate that. It's like they know.

[fauxklore]

I admit to laughing, and I actually LIKE spiders.

All of mine phobias are entirely rational, of course, particularly the one involving the idea that if I eat sunflower seeds, sunflowers will sprout in my stomach and grow through my digestive track, killing me.

Yes, really.

[kaasirpent]

OK, that was just odd. Sorry about that . . . reply.

What I was TRYING to say was this: Like I'm one to say anyone else's fear is irrational.

It may surprise people to find out that I like spiders, too. Outside, doing their thing, away from me, where I can't see them. Eat all the other bugs you want, spiders: I'm on your side.

Until you come into my house, my car, my office, or anything roughly identified as "my personal space." Then . . . you are evil, and you must go.