« Not laughing, crying. | Home | Of comfort toys and the comedic stylings of the threenager »
The last time I will talk about the eight legged spawn of satan. Promise.
By hissychick | June 4, 2008
Further to yesterday’s post, in which I may have given you some indication of the extent of my huntsman* spider phobia, I feel I must now justify some of my uncontrollable histrionics-even in front of the kids- when it comes to the eight legged devils.
You see, I have had a huntsman crawl on me. Not once, not twice, but three times.
The first incident occurred when I was thirteen.
As my parents live on a battleaxe block, it was common practice for us to collect the mail upon returning home by stopping at the top of the driveway, hopping out of the car, grabbing the mail and jumping back in the car for the final leg down the long steep driveway.
On this particular day, Mum and I were on our way back home after school. I popped out to collect a bundle of catalogues and jumped back in the car. And then an enormous huntsman crawled out and ran across my bare leg.
I screamed. Mum screamed. We pulled the car up on the steepest part of the driveway and fled. My Dad and sister came home to find an abandoned car in a precarious position and raced to the house thinking something terrible had happened.
And it had. It was the beginning of a phobia that shows no signs of abating.
The second incident occurred when I was nineteen.
Creeping back down the very same driveway very late one evening, I thought I’d brushed up against some leaves from overhanging branches. As I ducked and brushed the “leaves” from my head….you guessed it…another fucking huntsman. On my head. Thank dog I was drunk at the time or I would still be in therapy.
The third time happened last year, when I was heavily pregnant with E.
Mr hissychick was away for work, and I was happily strapping A into her car seat. It was then I noticed an enormous hairy legged beast on the seat next to my precious girl. And she was oblivious.
After the obligatory tearful phone calls to husband and parents, and rapid fire breathing that almost caused me to pass out, in between trying to pretend to my girl that nothing was happening, the fucker started to move. Towards A’s head. It was then I knew that I had to act.
I knew that I had to flick and squash, and that the flick had to be away from my daughter…..you can see where this is heading…. and my deft manoeuvre resulted in a spider running across my shoulder before disappearing somewhere in the parcel shelf behind the seats. I won’t bore you with the details of what followed.
I’ve well and truly lost my spider nerve.
I hate them. I hate trying to kill them because they move. Usually in my direction. Before yesterday’s incident there was another recent one involving the most enormous one that I have ever seen, and my efforts at killing it resulted in a spider crawling into A’s bedroom. A very sick with ear infection A’s bedroom. And here the beast hid until we came back from the doctors and I begged a friend to come around and dispose of it. I still have nightmares about having to search and finding it perched on A’s enormous teddy bear, leading to me fleeing the scene screaming while my friend caught it and flushed it down the toilet. Several times. Much to the amusement of our three year olds who revelled inthe excitment of going on a spider hunt. And catching a very big one.
I’m an environmental scientist by training, so I should be very well versed in how important spiders are for an ecosystem blah blah fishpaste. But I don’t care. I want them annihilated. At least within a two kilometre radius of my home and car and person. Forget the “mr hissychick, please catch this thing in a jar and release it outside” approach**. I want them dead dead dead.
And yet the beasts seem to follow me, find me when I am at my weakest and most vunerable. Why is that?
* If you are unfamiliar with the type of spider I am talking about, please avail yourself of the wonder that is Google. I can’t even bring myself to find you a link in case there are pictures. Yes I am that bad.
** Which mr hissychick was happy to do. Until the night he inadvertently caught a Funnel Web. In our bedroom. Google that one too…
PS Am happy to report that early intervention with antibiotics has meant that I’ve managed to head off the nastiness of a full blown bout of mastitis. The pain, redness and swelling has significantly decreased and I might be able to lie on my preferred side to sleep tonight for the first time in three nights. Woo hoo!
Topics: I will never truly appreciate Charlotte's Web | 7 Comments »
These creepy-crawlies seems to detect fear. My sister is terrified of cockroaches and they all seem to show themselves when she is around. Everywhere she goes, even at cafes at at some obscure places, they show just enough of themselves to make her jump (literally) Hence: her not keen on staying at my place.
I am a bad bug squisher. I run for something, or roll up a catalog quick, to squish a roach whenever one’s been spotted. I also am the one who goes after mosquitoes.
Moomykin’s last blog post..Big Day Plans Foiled
Posted by: Moomykin on June 4th, 2008 at 10:38 pmIt probably won’t please you to hear that my brother had a pet tarantula for 3 years.
“Until the night he inadvertently caught a Funnel Web. In our bedroom.”
Erk… Reason number #187 why I don’t live in the Blue Mountains! >.<
Cyntech’s last blog post..Technical Blog
Posted by: Cyntech on June 4th, 2008 at 10:56 pmI’d catch them for you if I lived closer. We used to name our huntsmans *blush*
Posted by: Jenn on June 5th, 2008 at 3:06 amI had a huntsman crawl over my legs when I was asleep in bed. I was a live-in nanny at the time (12 yrs ago) and was too embarrassed to wake up the rest of the household to help search and destroy the not-so-little bugger. He had crawled under the bed after I’d ungraciously flung him onto the floor. So I sat in the middle of my bed with the light on until the sun rose (three hours later), then I knocked him out with a lethal dose of mortein.
I don’t mind them from a distance but he was getting a little too cosy for my liking.
Now rats are a whole different issue…don’t get me started on those suckers….ewwwwww!!!
xx Em
Posted by: Emily on June 5th, 2008 at 4:16 amHissychick – it’s confession time for me. I’m also an environmental scientist and truly, I deeply respect all creatures for their intrinsic value etc etc. Except fucking huntsman fucking spider fuckers. What is it with them? Is it the way they jump? Follow you around with their front legs waving threateningly in the air? Their outright hairiness? Hideously long legs?
Who cares. Kill them all.
Posted by: pinert on June 5th, 2008 at 6:30 amIf anyone has watched the movie Arachnophobia from (I think) the mid-80′s, they used hunstman spiders in that movie. Lots of them. No need to Google.
Btw, thanks for dropping by my site. Now we know 3 more things about you!
JLow’s last blog post..Marriage “Fitness”, not just health!
Posted by: JLow on June 5th, 2008 at 6:48 amKathie- It’s so true. Like your sister and cockroaches…I attract spiders, much to mr hissychick’s peverse delight.
Cyntech- I hope your brother has been suitably rehabilitated before re-release back into society!
Jenn- I would so gladly take you up on that offer if I could. My hero friend who keeps rescuing me from the beasties when she can keeps telling me that there is nothing to it…as I cower at the
opposite end of the house to where she is doing said catching.
Em- Oh god,in bed?! I am going to have nightmares about that tonight….
Pinert- hello there fellow green (note:green optional) geek. You summed it up ever so beautifully. We’re going to get along just fine. (And if you have a blog…am assuming you do, please send the addy my way)..
JLow- I stupidly saw that film as a teenager, not long before my first spider incident. And I will never ever watch it again. Even if the only other movies left on earth to watch are ones starring Julia Roberts.
Posted by: hissychick on June 5th, 2008 at 12:10 pm