Severe Case of Arachnophobia

A Severe Case of Arachnophobia

Victor A. Howard

ENG 121 English Composition 1

Instructor: Mrs. Schorzman

March 30, 2016

A Severe Case of Arachnophobia

Many people have the undying unique fear of the famed Eight Legged Freaks (2002) also known as spiders. From my very first encounter with the creatures from another world around the age of eight or nine when my mother, father, brother, sister and I lived in an older house in the deep desolate backwoods of South Carolina I have had a strong disdain for spiders because of their notion for “popping up” randomly. My first occurrence of seeing these arachnids in the uncanniest of places was one warm summer night while watching television after dinner when I happened to spot an anomaly from the corner of my eye. It was all downhill from there.

Because I was the youngest of three children, my older siblings would always play annoying little tricks on me at random times like dangling a string with a dead bug above my head when I wasn’t paying attention, therefore, I was sure this was them again. So I pretended not to notice the thing in my peripheral. Now mind you this is rural South Carolina and bugs in that area are ginormous compared to other places. So while this thing that was not more than two feet from my head and face was slowly making its way there, I called to my sister, “Felicia, is that you?” When I heard no response I then realized that both my brother and sister were already in bed because I heard no noise coming from the other rooms so they couldn’t possibly be the culprits this time. I then gathered the courage to turn and face what was slowly creeping towards my head and low and behold there it was. The thing that only lives in the nightmares of those brave enough to dream of it at all; a huge hairy spider. “Holy crap,” I yelled and swiftly knocked it away to the dusty laminate floor and squashed it with one of my mother’s old leather shoes laying in the corner.

The fear...