I have a thing about spiders.
When I was six years old, I tried to crawl through a drainage pipe under a road to come out on the other side. I got maybe ten or twenty feet in, and the pipe had been getting progressively narrower, until I realized I couldn’t go any further, and was having trouble going back. While I was wiggling backwards, inch by inch, I suddenly realized there were cobwebs and stuff that had got all over my back and my hair. As I looked out the corner of my eye on my shoulder, there was a daddy longlegs. I completely freaked out. I started screaming horribly and was bashing myself against the wall, just going nuts. I don’t know why, daddy longlegs aren’t really all that scary and are harmless, but...hey, I was six years old. My older brother who was watching, crawled in, grabbed me by the ankles and dragged me out. I was like a shot out of a cannon. I ran, screaming down the road, leaping in the air, pirouetting, crazily beating my head and shoulders with my arms. At every turn, when I looked, that dead spider was still stuck to me, solidly. Now, I know that technically, Daddy Longlegs aren't classified as spiders, and as far as they go, can't physically harm you. But to a kid who had nightmares about the large mechanical spider in the Johnny Quest cartoon intro, it was terrifying to me!
Johnny Quest Cartoon Intro (which I just watched at the link on YouTube, have not seen it since I was that age, and...man! Great intro-had kickass music, and lots of action that appealed to a boy!)
My brother laughs about it today...:)
I find spiders interesting, but if they crawl on me...hoo boy. I just can’t help it. I lived in the Philippines, and they had enormous bugs and beetles, lizards and snakes, and I had no problem with them. Just spiders. Go figure.
I saw this one outside my house recently...
Now, it was interesting, but...if that thing ever crawls on me, I don't care if it produces a puddle of green goo with legs protruding that is toxic enough to eat through me the way the bodily fluids in the aliens in the movie of the same name eat through steel...it is getting squished with prejudice!