***Disclaimer: this is completely true story. This fear is very real. I know that there could be a lot worse and is a lot worse going on in the world. This is intended to be a light hearted attempt poking fun at my own fear.***
She woke early one morning, full of excitement for the upcoming day ahead. Quickly changing from her pajamas to her yoga clothes, she was looking forward to taking her morning flow/practice outside. It was finally starting to get cool enough (and not crazy muggy) to do her Yoga on the back deck and she had been eagerly waiting for this moment.
There is just something special about taking your practice outside, surrounded by all the wonderful morning sounds: birds chirping, breeze flowing through the trees, and of course a sunrise that only dreams contain. Perfection.
After changing, throwing her hair up into a loose pony, and brushing her teeth, she grabbed her mat and headed to the back door. She was about to crack it open when she saw it…
A spider. Suspended in mid air (in its web of course). Just hanging out. Blocking her way of getting to the back deck.
“No” she thought to herself. “No, no, no. This is NOT happening”.
In her mind, it was the beginning of the end.
***Now, I suppose I should clear something up. She was TERRIFIED of spiders. Borderline Arachnophobic and while bits of her fear were rational, for the most part it was a completely irrational fear. ***
Determined to still feel calm, she did her morning practice in her living room, curtains open, and tried to go about the rest of her day as if there was not a killing machine in the form of an innocent bug right outside her back door.
The next morning dawned, the spider was still there, this time joined by two more outside of other windows. This WAS not ok for her. She was FINALLY getting the cooler weather, where it wasn’t so oppressive to be outside and she couldn’t even enjoy it?!
***I suppose I should also mention that she did not kill spiders. Every time she had tried to, she didn’t actually succeed in killing the spider in the first attempt. I could go into a whole separate story about this, but we’ll just leave it at she was almost as scared to kill a spider as she was of the spider itself. As I stated earlier, irrational.***
Over the next few mornings the number slowly grew. When it reached 5, she told her husband that something needed to happen. They had to go. They couldn’t enjoy the weather they were waiting all summer to get. So, that weekend he went out to handle the situation.
10 spiders gone. 10 spiders. Spiders she hadn’t even known were there because she couldn’t get onto the back deck to see where they were. Spiders under the deck. Spiders in the back yard, the side yard. 2 had even caused her husband to remark on the size! She followed and counted as he kept spraying and spraying. Once it was done, she thought they were good to go on the spider front.
And they were. For a week or so.
Morning dawned clear. There was a brightness to the morning and as she opened up the blinds in preparation of her day she had a smile on her face. That is, until she saw it…
A spider. In the outside corner of her bedroom window. Hanging out in its masterpiece of a web (pun completely intended).
***If this sounds like dejavu, it completely is.***
“Is this ever going to end?” She thought to herself. They had just handled this and she thought they would now be good for the year.
Not a day later, she found three more spiders, one hanging out in their carport, another the other right next to their front door, one just off the front porch. Front door spider made getting the mail a lot of fun. Her older son loved the spiders. Every morning for the week the one was outside their bedroom, he would come in in the morning and watch it. His favorite? The morning the spider was eating it’s meal of an unsuspecting bee. He thought it was really cool, she did not really think so.
Her husband found the fact that the spiders had returned comical. She knew that he would eventually either handle the spiders again, or maybe they would move on their own, but until then he would get a good chuckle out of the whole situation.
The weekend came and her husband decided to power wash bits of the front of the house. This took care of two out of the four spiders. The spider right outside their window was a speedy one and moved just fast enough to avoid being sprayed by the water. It clung to its web in an upper corner and there it stayed for a little while longer.
Eventually that spider moved its web to another part of the house and all was well…for now…
***Authors Note: I know that once again, this is a ridiculous thing to get out of sorts with, but I’m trying to poke a little fun at my own fears and silliness from my day to day. Please treat it as just the lighthearted giggle that it has become. Also, in case you’ve seen on my SM, I wrote this at the end of September/Beginning of October. Since that time we have had a resurgence of Spiders. Rather than me continue to add on to the ridiculous length of this story, just repeat the couple last paragraphs over again in your head. I guarantee it was about the same reaction on all fronts. I hope you enjoyed!!
A Cuppa Cosy 