The Itsy Bitsy Spider

This is not a post about anything spiritual. I just want to tell you that I am scared to death of spiders. I mean, running out of the bathroom naked and screaming, because there is a spider in the bathtub, kind of scared of spiders. This goes way back into my childhood. I lived in an area that was infested with massive spiders. There was no way to keep them out of your house. And they bit. Yes, really. They would bite me while I slept. My parents have pictures to prove it. They also had a nasty habit of hiding in unexpected places. I am not exaggerating.

So today, there is one of those tiny little jumping spiders hanging around my desk. He won't go away, no matter how many times I try to scare him off by thumping my pen near him. He has even jumped up on my arm a few times. If I were predisposed to see "signs from God," everywhere I looked, it would be very tempted to interpret this little spider as some kind of divine message. But I am not. I just think it's odd.

I don't find this kind of spider scary, by the way. Only the big ones, with long legs. The kind that are really quick and horribly ugly. It is making me nervous just to think about them. I stepped on one in my kitchen a few years ago. I couldn't even walk in the kitchen for two days.