THIS is me:
When I was seven years old, I tried to crawl through a drainage pipe that went under a road. I could see the other side, so I thought it would be neat.
I wiggled my way in, and was about 15 feet in when I suddenly noticed the pipe was getting narrower. Next thing I knew, I couldn't budge forward, and could only wiggle slightly backward.
I was lying on leaves, twigs and junk, arms out in front of me, and turned my head to say something to my older brother who was standing outside, when I saw that a huge cobweb and got squished all over my neck and shoulder.
And stuck right in it, was a big, huge, Daddy Longlegs. Just like the one on the Johnny Quest cartoon. Staring at me, with that single (I thought) eye.
That pipe immediately became skin-tight and I began to scream and wiggle in a most horrible fashion. Somehow, my brother wiggled in behind me, grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me out.
Next thing I knew, I was running down the middle of a residential street, screaming loudly, jumping in the air and twirling in a way that would have made a professional figure skater jealous, all the while beating my head and shoulders madly.
Every single time I glanced back, like a dog with tin cans tied to its tail, that Daddy Longlegs was still there...bouncing around, just within my field of view.
My brother got it off me, and even though I do not remember how I knew, I somehow found out that damned Daddy Longlegs was a corpse stuck in the web. It was one of my most frightening childhood experiences.
To this day, I harbor an irrational fear when I feel or see one on my body. I cannot kill them...they ARE interesting, and I find them fascinating, but...they still bring out some kind of primal fear in my gut, if even for a fleeting fraction of a second if one is on me.
Another time, I was driving down the road at night, and...a little itty bitty spider begins to lower itself from the ceiling of my car...right...in front of my nose.
So here I am, driving down a twisty New England road doing about 45 mph, at night, and I am completely fixated on this spider about three inches from the front of my face...inching slowly down towards my crotch.
I cannot take my eyes off of it for a second to look at the road. Just as I was coming to grips with the situation, doesn't the damn thing just DROP and disappear into my lap.
I damn near wrecked my car. But I always wondered how my face looked to the spider...kind of fisheye distorted, bug eyed and crosseyed, with a great gaping black mouth slowly opening to reveal a waving uvula at the back of my throat as I yelled.
And all this isn't because I am squeamish...I lived in the Philippines, and they had dang near every variety of bizzare huge beetle with enormous mandibles like Tiger Beetles, Rhinocerous Beetles, and the prized and rare, Ox Beetles. They had lizards, geckos, snakes, monkeys, boars, monitor lizards and God knows what else...but it was only the spiders that freaked me out.
BTW...I DO know Daddy Longlegs aren't really spiders, and I DO know they are completely beneficial and harmless, but...still scary to me.