A Thing About Spiders

We all have them. And don’t go pretending you don’t. I’m talking about phobias. The kind of fear that makes us do irrational things at times. Even embarrassing things. Now I’ve blogged about another phobia of mine. Remember the elephant and zoo story? If not, here’s the link: (I promise you, you’ll get a laugh.) Elephant blog.

I may have even mentioned my other phobia. Okay, so I have more than one.

Doesn’t everybody?

In my defense, I have to tell you that I came by this phobia naturally. I inherited it. That’s right, believe it or not, we can pass on these quirky unreasonable fears to our precious offspring.

The fear that plagued my mother—spiders, or some may refer to it as, arachnophobia—found its way into my own phobia bank. And darn it, in spite of my best attempt to save my daughter from this dark mark on her rational behavior capabilities, I failed.

Three women, three generations, who go into full-blown panic mode, at the sight of anything that has eight legs. Never mind that the eight-legged subject weighs in at less than a tenth of an ounce, that we could all take out said creature with our pinky toes. Ahh, but the mere thought of getting any part of our bodies, pinky toe included near even one of those eight legs causes serious damage to our psyches. (And, no, it doesn’t matter if we are wearing steel-toed boots over said pinky toe, the serious damage is the same.) Did you get the serious part? Because I’m not joking.

Have you ever seen those old flicks where bad actors, wearing war paint, and imitating Indians do war dances? You know, where the feet start coming off the ground, the knees rise up to chin level. Well, when in a full-blown arachnophobia attack, we, do this dance. It’s not quite like the bad actors war dance, but add a few Polka dance moves in there and you’re close. We’ve even named it the Polka Eight-legged dance. It’s a good name, too, because our feet move up and down so fast that to a witness, it may appear as if we have eight legs.

Oh, and the noise. It’s horrific. Screams from the very center of our solar plexus spew out of our lips. I seriously believe this is some kind of instinctual prehistoric language meant to warn any arachnophobic person within a hundred miles, that a spider is on the prowl.

The only thing worse, or more embarrassing, than performing said dance in public, it is performing it when you are certain that the eight-legged creature has found its way inside your clothes. (You know where I’m going, don’t you?)

Yep, we’re talking a Naked Polka Eight-legged dance. The clothes have got to come off. And it doesn’t matter where you’re at, or who may be present.

My mother, God love her, performed the Naked Polka Eight-legged Dance for the entire neighborhood when a black eight-legged creature fell into her blouse while getting the laundry off the clothes line. Her performance was so . . . eye-catching, that there are men still talking about it, fifty years after the fact.

Now up until recently, I have been spared having to perform said ‘naked” version of the dance with an audience. Oh, I came close once a few years ago. My daughter and I were walking to the car, when she stopped and said, “Oh, you have something in your hair. She reached out and then squealed, “OH, GAWD!”

She never said spider, she didn’t have to, the scream and the dance had begun.

Me, I’m stood there frozen, yelling, “Get it! Get it! Get it! Get it!”

She continued to dance and then screamed, “Not me! Not me! Not me! Not me!”

Thankfully, after performing the dance myself, the spider is slung off my head by uncontrollable and violent head jerks, and the postman staring at us from the mail truck is spared from seeing the strip tease portion of the dance.

Of course, yesterday is another story.

I was returning home from doing a photo shoot. I had my camera bag, my purse, and some tomatoes I’d picked up at vegetable stand in my hands. I’m hurrying from my car inside when I felt it. No it’s not a spider, it’s even worse.

It was a spider web.

I had walked right into one and it was everywhere—on my face, on chest, on my arms. And I was certain inside my clothes!

I started to scream but then I looked up and my neighbor and a couple of his friends were standing in his driveway.

Gawd have mercy on them. Gawd have mercy on me. The scream locked itself in my throat. All I could think about was doing the dance and getting rid of my clothes. But I could still hear those dirty old men recounting the story of my poor mom . . . so I fought it. I fought it with it with everything inside of me.

Breath held, I bolted for my front door. Hands shaking I barely managed to turn the door knob. I made it inside, slammed the door shut. My $1000 camera, my purse, and the tomatoes were thrown to the floor.

The prehistoric scream emerged from my lips, and the dance commenced. The knees started rising, the clothes started coming off, and the tomatoes, underfoot were paste.

Oh, but even in my sheer state panic I was so damn proud of myself. Proud that I had not performed said dance in front of my neighbors.

And then I hear it. (You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?) I hear laughter.

I look up and my eighteen-year-old son and his friend are standing in the living room, eyes wide with shock as they stare at me. Me, only wearing a pair of jeans and a bra, knees still moving, and a pile of smashed tomatoes underfoot.

My son, still laughing, says, “Hey, don’t pay any attention to her, she just has this thing about spiders.”

So there you have it—another embarrassing moment in the Craig house. What about you guys? Please . . . don’t make me be the only one sharing embarrassing stories today.

Crime Scene Christie -- Who has probably damaged her son’s friend for life.