If The Karate Kid Is Not At Home

There is an incredible range of arthropod-ian courage among the average human: My husband, for example, thinks nothing of flattening smallish insects with his bare hand (be still my heart), but can barely bring himself to confront the butterfly’s homely cousin, the moth. Another game of valor and daring he likes to play is to catch a fly in his hand (Karate Kid for beginners), shake it up in his closed fist, and then toss it outside. 

At the opposite end of the spectrum are the folks that have my most sincere empathy, the arachnophobic or entomophobic. A phobia is no laughing matter; my arachnophobia used to be paralyzing. If I ever came across a spider unexpectedly (Hint: it’s always unexpectedly), I would require emergency transportation to my room, where I hid under the covers, with a flashlight, some holy water, a can of Raid, and a stash of chocolate, until someone came in to reassure me that the offending spider or bug had been squished into oblivion and its remains flushed down the neighbor’s toilet. Pretty similar to what the sight of Winter does to me today, minus the can of Raid. Although somewhere in my little brain, Reason (or my mother) said that I was much larger than the spider, therefore it should be afraid of me; somehow Intuition told me that if turned my back on even the tiniest spider, it would bite and poison me, tie me up with its nasty floss, and drag me back to its lair to slowly feed to its young.

Many years ago when my own brave knight was working and going to school, I discovered late one evening a huge, hulking, gargantuan, hairy, creepy, disgusting spider sitting (or standing, it’s hard to tell) in the middle of my kitchen floor. At that point in my life, about all I had in the way of grit and valor was the ability to shoo away a fairly small ladybug. And my three year old was asleep, otherwise I would have asked him. I knew I was in trouble. All I had available in my emotional arsenal was either to faint, or to run away screaming and crying, like Lord Denethor in his famous scene from “The Return of the King”: “FLEE! FLEE FOR YOUR LIVES!!!!” But as my two preschoolers were in bed, I decided on Plan C: Have someone else’s fearless husband come over and kill it for me...at 10:00 p.m.

I called my nearest neighbor and, in my most pitiful and forlorn voice, explained my terrifying situation. I asked if her husband could come help. She hesitated just a moment before replying, “Sure. I’ll send him over.” When the poor man arrived, he looked appreciably uncomfortable. I wondered if he had been on his way to bed and was tired, or if he thought it was questionable for a married man to come to my house late at night. I showed him where the beast was, just chilling in the middle of the floor, as though it owned the place. At this point, my poor neighbor who, in his discomfort, could barely set foot in my kitchen confessed his pain. “Spiders terrify me,” he whispered hoarsely.  We stood there, transfixed by the monster. While I was trying to figure out an appropriate sentiment of encouragement and confidence, I am pretty sure he was trying to figure out how to slip out unnoticed. Instead this brilliant and stouthearted man dropped a very large phonebook on the offending and offensive creature; after which he very gingerly stepped on the phonebook, for good measure.

Nowadays, after years of therapy and the consumption of much chocolate, I have come to grips with my phobias. Rather than turning into human jello water at the sight of any arthropod larger than a grain of coarse sea salt, I am able to take a deep breath, stick out my chin, and weep silently.

Share your stories! But wait until I get back from the store with my dark chocolate and D batteries.