The 'S' Word

I'm afraid of spiders.

Actually, afraid is not the word...terrified would be the word. Unreasonably, illogically, sincerely terrified. I have nightmares about them; sometimes I will wake up and be just positive that there is an evil spider hanging in space right in front of my face, ready to pounce! I'll scream and bat at the air like a mad person, jump up and get the light on, and of course there is nothing there at all :)

When I was a child, I went to stay all night with my dad; he was upstairs asleep and I was downstairs asleep. My brother and his wife were also staying there that night, and they were downstairs asleep as well.

So imagine how they felt when I woke them all up with bloodcurdling shrieks; my dad nearly broke his neck tumbling down the stairs with his shotgun, but I think my brother got the worst of it. He was sound asleep when suddenly he was awakened by me as I stood at his bedside, holding my hands toward him, shrieking madly! I was still not even fully awake!

Of course my dad thought there was an intruder, and my brother, well, let's just say he never did let me live that down! Once he got over his close encounter with a heart attack, that is.

And all because I was having a nightmare about a spider!
In truth, I hate to even write the S word, because when I do, I visualize them...So yup, I have a quite a phobia when it comes to sp--the S word. ;)

And here is what got me blogging about this; my cousin just spent approximately a month in a hospital in Columbus, after a spider bite. He nearly lost his leg; he was bitten by what they are calling a 'hobo' spider, but there aren't supposed to be any of those where we live, so either it was just a rare case for this area, or in actuality it was a brown recluse. Hobo and brown recluse bites are often confused.

Ugh. I'm going to go wash my mind out with soap and think about other things!