The Only Good Spider is a Dead Spider

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In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Embrace the Ick.”

“The only good spider is a dead spider.”

Anyone who knows me and has spent any time with me at all, has heard me say this.  I wholeheartedly believe it.

My husband is a spider sympathizer. If one is found in the house, he will actually scoop it up with a piece of paper and put it outside. It is madness.  He tells me that spiders are actually useful, that they eat insects or some other nonsense. Lies. Spiders are not useful.

I know it is an irrational fear – I’ve never been physically harmed by a spider – but I have been afraid of spiders for as long as I can remember.  I have a vivid memory of walking in the woods with my dad as a kid and coming upon a big, fat spider in the middle of a web. It was black with yellow stripes on its ugly legs and it was right in front of my face. I had a full blown panic attack.  As I got older, I started having spider stress dreams.  As in, if I were going through a particularly stressful time, it would manifest in my dreams as spider attacks… being surrounded by spiders, having them fall on me, etc.  These are the worst because I wake up screaming and I have to flip on the light and prove to myself that my bed is not full of spiders.  I can never get back to sleep after those.

I guess this is the part where I am supposed to write about the positive virtues about spiders but I truly don’t believe they have any. The only thing that I can think of is that they build beautiful webs. And those webs are strong.  So, kudos to them on their web-building skills, I guess.

And just so you know, I searched for a related photo to go with this post to make it look nice for your viewing pleasure.  Like an idiot, I searched “spider web.” Big mistake. My computer screen was immediately full of pictures of nasty spiders. I almost had a heart attack. So I revised my search to “web.” Lesson learned.  I am thoroughly traumatized.

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