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Thursday, June 30, 2011

Spiders are not my friend

Spring has long been my favourite season of the fab four. It is not too hot, not too cold, the trees are turning green and life just seems a little more enjoyable.
The only drawback to spring is the return of bugs. I hate bugs, especially spiders. Some may argue spiders are arachnids and not a bug in the true definition of the word, but who the hell cares?
I argue that when I see one, they are nothing more than a wet mark on the bottom of my shoe.
I do not really care what the genesis of their species is, what their Latin name is or what type of spider they are. If they are threatening my personal space – which they do simply by sharing the planet with me – then they must become a splootch on the ground.
Don’t know what a splootch is?
Stomp a spider into the concrete as hard as you can – the resulting mass of spider goo is a splootch.
I know I am a gazillion times bigger than a spider, but they still scare the snot out of me.
The lack of spiders is the best part of winter. I do not like being cold, but I hate being terrified so it is a fair trade in my book.
Problem is, every spring the multi-legged freaks begin to emerge from the depths of hell from which they live in the off season, and they all have one single goal in mind: to terrorize me until the following winter.
Some people may say the strongest drive among all living creatures is to reproduce – hence the invention of beer and dancing – but for the spider its reason to live is far more sinister.
They do reproduce, by the thousands, but for the sole purpose of creating more spiders to terrify yours truly.
Sure as a bonus, producing offspring ensures the continuation of their species, but underlying the need to maintain their presence on earth is the need to scare the snot out of me.
Big, small, fat, skinny – it doesn’t matter. I am an equal opportunity spider hater.
While I fear them all, it is the big, black fuzzy ones that hold a special place in my heart.
Have you ever seen a grown man scream like a small frightened school girl?
That would be me when I spot one of those big, ugly monsters on me.
Walking through the woods one day I felt the presence of evil. Looking down to my left I saw a black spider that was just slightly larger than a Chihuahua.
It was hanging off a piece of web that had attached itself to my arm. The beast of horror-movie proportions was mere centimetres away from reaching my hand when I went ballistic.
First, I did the spider dance. That is where I jump around screeching like a little girl while thrashing my arms about in a fashion akin to someone being electrocuted.
The spider dance is followed by the spider twitch. The spider twitch is where, for the next few minutes, you involuntarily brush away and swat at the imaginary army of spiders that are crawling all over your body.
There is not so much screeching with the twitch, but the look of pure, raw terror can still be seen in my eyes.
Only those who share my distain for the arachnids of the world would recognize the dance and twitch. Others would just wonder how I can have a full body seizure while still standing.
Now I know PETA – People for the Ethical Treatment of Arachnids – will likely be annoyed by my blanket dislike of all things spider – but too bad.
If I see a spider on the sidewalk, I will not hesitate to splootch it into eternity.
Darren Handschuh can be reached at therudemonkey@gmail.com.

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