Arachnophobia

Seems everyone is afraid of something. Fear is a learned experience. At one time in your life, you would have had a bad experience, or what seemed a bad experience in your mind, to develop a fear. Learned that in Psychology 101:) Yes, one of the few times I paid attention in school. Well, my family is no different. We each have our phobias. My oldest daughter is terrified of spiders. Maybe I shouldn't have let her watch Arachnophobia at such a young age. So, almost on a weekly basis, I'm called to a certain part of the house to save her from the man-eating spider. A couple of days ago, we had a rather large spider in our laundry room. It's probably the largest I've seen inside of our house. I walked into our laundry room to get either beer from the fridge, or meat from the freezer, and there stood the eight legged terrorist in the middle of the floor. He just stood there, unmovable, as if we were two gunfighters meeting in the middle of the street for the final gunfight. So I put on my Clint Eastwood face and spurs. I could hear that eerie gunfighter music and the crack of a bullwhip in the background. I wasn't about to let a spider stand between me and a cold one, so it didn't take long for me to realize, I was much bigger than he was, and I made my move. Long story short, I won the showdown. But, this spider was large enough, when I stepped on him, he actually made a crunching sound, yes, just like in the movies! I don't really fear spiders. Of course, I've never been face to face with a tarantula that wasn't on the other side of a piece of glass. Not sure what I would do in that situation. The one fear I am blessed with is keraunophobia. That would be the fear of lightning. Unlike spiders, I do not have much control over my environment during a lightning storm. So while the sky outside is igniting with protons, or electrons, or whatever ons it chooses, I'll be inside with my daughter, curled up with a good version of Charlotte's Web, sharing some curds and whey.