Watershed moments

People who get to know me well will eventually learn that I like spiders. I do not automatically kill every spider that I find in the house. We practice capture and release, unless it is a brown recluse that has is not being reclusive and is out and about (which is very rare). He will kill them, I usually let them scurry back into hiding. I suppose I am being foolish -- I knew someone who had to eventually have plastic surgery to repair the damage from a brown recluse bite.

I like to take pictures of spiders. Rest easy, here are just a few. I won't bore you to tears.

  

 

My birthday is very close to Halloween. One year a friend, who is a good with a sewing machine, was inspired to give me a tote bag and some pot holders made from spider web material.

The local market takes 5 cents off the total when customers bring in their own bags to put the groceries in. I have quite a few bags to use for this, and today I happened to grab the spider web bag as I headed out the door. Tuesday is “banana day” at the market, and the price-per-pound drops to 39 cents.

A young woman behind me at the checkout counter noticed the bag sitting on the conveyor

and commented that it was “cute.” So I had to explain that someone had made it for me because I liked spiders quite a bit.

She said she had severe arachnophobia. Her fear of spiders began when she was 5 years old. She woke up and a spider was on her face. That “did it” for her.

My interest in spiders began when I also was about 5 years old. I was out in our yard one day and I noticed this “fuzzy looking thing” on the wooden fence at eye level. I don’t remember touching it, but I must have, because suddenly hundreds of tiny spiders came pouring out from under, spreading out in all directions. I still remember how amazed and excited I was to see that.

Some researchers believe folks are born with an innate fear of spiders and snakes and that it is a “hangover from a survival instinct that evolved in ancient times.” I dunno.  Maybe.

I know that I was never afraid of spiders or snakes, and my parents (usually it's the mom who does this) did not teach me to be afraid of them. I think it would have been interesting to to visit with this young woman more about the topic but the line was moving. I wonder if she would have gone on to grow up to be afraid of spiders if she had not had that experience. Oh well...

In any event, our very different experiences as young children – hers and mine -- were watershed moments -- they certainly affected us for the rest of our lives.