Afraid of big spiders? They might not be that big.

Happy Ginger day to you all. The weather has warmed slightly, which naturally leads me towards spring cleaning and this involves chasing the spiders from my office and taking down the MASSIVE orb webs from the shed ( I do it every year after winter, they rebuild of course, but that’s okay, I don’t mind SHARING the space, just as long as it’s even Stephen, not the espeeders 80/Fat cat 20 sort of dealio we currently have going on)

My oldest friend is arachnophobic to such a degree that I can’t even have this conversation with her without her feeling slightly faint. How she lives out in the countryside is beyond me, surrounded by fields and woods, espeeder land if ever there was one, although this time of year is not so bad, September October is bad when the big guys decide it is high-time to head in from the cold, that’s bad.

Not for me, I used to be scared of espeeders to a certain degree until I moved to spain, then, between snakes lizards, cockroaches, and the various other indigenous monsters I battled daily, I began to look rather fondly on espeeders and my tolerance of them bloomed to such a degree that I remain practically benevolent towards them. I leave various ones in situ, I catch the big fellows and put them outside, I provide safe haven for the shed ones year in and out and when Elvira’s babies hatched I removed them from my office, all eleventy billion of them, to the shed too.

Naturally my friend thinks I need to go see someone to talk it over.  OR to put it in her actual words, ‘Urgh honey, you’re fucking mad to go near them…shudder shudder.’

But it is interesting the reactions to espeeeders. I don’t mind looking at them, but I do not like it when they scuttle across my hand and while moving boxes the other week, a rather massive one scuttled, alarmed from the huge bloody web it had constructed over December, to escape, the very first thing it did was run right over my wrist, causing me to perform Swan Lake in my hall while singing Don Giovanni. Once I had finished my gran jeté avec cadenza and staggered to the kitchen to locate the ‘catchin’ glass’, it occurred to me that this must me how my friend feels every time she open a cupboard or put her shoe on. Ghastly.

I caught the monster and set him on the lawn outside. He clumped off, possible muttering under his breath, into the night, and thus harmony and heartbeat were restored to normal.

The next time I saw her I gleefully told  my friend, who is horrified by such talk, all about it. By the time I had finished she was paler than the moon and my large house espeeder was– in her mind– something like this ( by the way, these are not actually espeeders, but no matter) when in fact it was more like – this

Curious about all things arachnid, I was delighted to come across the following article this morning in my customary perusal of all things scientific.

“The more afraid a person is of a spider, the bigger that individual perceives the spider to be, new research suggests.

In the context of a fear of spiders, this warped perception doesn’t necessarily interfere with daily living. But for individuals who are afraid of needles, for example, the conviction that needles are larger than they really are could lead people who fear injections to avoid getting the health care they need.”

The rest of the article can be found here.

Makes a kind so sense does it not? the more we fear something the greater and more terrifying it becomes. I dislike heights, I am  convinced  if I am too near a ledge I will faint, then roll clean off it to my death. because of this I make sure I climb Glendalough at least twice a year, where I gallop over the Spinx, heart in my ears, knees close to buckling so that I may descend again on the other side triumphant and unlike my mother. I know it’s kind of pathetic, but one cannot be bested by one’s fears, that way leads to Lilac…Mordor. NO!

In the spirit of scientific sharing, I read the article to my friend this morning and suggested we trap one of the orb weavers in the shed and observe it. She laughed and then said in a very serious voice. ‘No, just no. I’ll kill you.’

‘How bout we start off with something smaller then?”

‘No.’

‘Earwig?’

‘NO!’

‘Daddy long legs, they’re harmless.’

‘I’m hanging up now.’

‘You know you’ll need to get shit out from under your stairs some day.’

‘No I won’t,’  she said. FIRMLY.

She will you know, and I’m not driving to Wicklow to do it for her. But enough about espeeders, let us gaze on some real beauty. Oh Carrot Top, I would totes be your bunny any day. XX