spider | Wild Pinguistrella

A couple of nights ago I was zapping from one channel to another, unable to sleep because of the heat, and I found a documentary about phobias coming from animals. There was this american woman explaining how she was utterly scared of mice, to the point of avoiding certain areas of her town where she knew she could take a glimpse of one and stuff like that. While listening to her describing why such a small animal could scare her that much I couldn’t help but think that the adjectives she used weren’t so scary after all: like, the fact that they have fat bellies and pointy noses with big teeth and that they run so fast on the ground… then again, probably it doesn’t bother me that much because I’m not afraid of them, but if I had to describe my primordial fear it would probably be just as weird.

I’m very scared by spiders.

Like, horror movie scared, not simply girlie scared.

I don’t even know if it started in my childhood or when, because I don’t recall being bitten by one. My worst childhood memory is about a walk in a green area around here in fall season, during which one of those big tarantula – like (I’m not sure it was a true tarantula because I believe they don’t live in my region, or at least I have to hope so) spider “jumped” on my jeans, totally freaking me out. I recall that it was big and black or dark brown, but I don’t think it could be as big as it grew in my memory… anyways I think it all started there, when I was around 7 years old.

Then last year it somehow got even worse.

I was afraid in a sober way, like avoiding to get close to spiders and shivering when seeing one in the house but still managing to keep control, although I could never force myself to touch it even with paper or something to throw it out ( I would never kill one no matter how scared I am. I dislike violence on animals even when they are just insects[ok, arachnids], I always try to force them out without hurting them); until one bright april morning of last year I woke up in Lorenzo’s attic room and reached for my clothes, which were hanging from a separè near the bed. I slid one hand though the sleeve of my sweater and to my dismay I felt something cold and hairy on my fingers. Then my hand came out and on it there was a gigantic black spider.

Like, friggin’ huge!

It was one of those spider that we call “house” spiders, thick body with a big belly and long legs: they don’t really do cobwebs but they’d rather hide in a dark corner preying on things that pass close to them unknowingly. He (cos this one deserved more than “it” in my opinion, probably he was big enough to get a college degree or something) probably mistook the sleeve for a cave or maybe he just liked the cozy feeling and warmth in there. Too bad feelings weren’t mutual!

Horror - movie scary, am I right?

When my brain processed the fact that I was holding Shelob itself on my hand, I started shaking it (which luckily worked, as the spider dropped somewhere on the floor) and screaming like one of those horror movies starlets in the butchery scene. Lorenzo and his sister, who were both 2 floors down, heard me and came rushing up the stairs afraid that Freddy Krueger was cutting me or something like that.
They found me in a corner of the bed, doing small whimpering sounds, shaking and still trying to get something off my hand although the spider was long gone at that point. I kept feeling the cold wet feeling where the spider touched me and it took a couple of hours to get rid of it… Lorenzo had to physically lift me from my corner because I was afraid that the creature was somewhere around and he also had to check all of my clothes to make sure there weren’t any threats inside.

It was the first time I panicked so much and after that my fear got worse; I try to make fun of the story but I still shiver if I recall the sight of the spider on my fingers…. although he probably looked more something like this: