The Old Folks Home

[Lacy Blues]

Good for you! The only good spider is a dead spider!

Actually, the only place I really go after spiders is in my house... or it's a black widow or something that resembles a recluse. Outside of those guidelines, if they stay out of my house, they can live! I hate them! But I hate mosquitoes and flies too so the well-behaved spiders can live... OUTSIDE!

 

[ronott1]

Good for you! The only good spider is a dead spider!

Actually, the only place I really go after spiders is in my house... or it's a black widow or something that resembles a recluse. Outside of those guidelines, if they stay out of my house, they can live! I hate them! But I hate mosquitoes and flies too so the well-behaved spiders can live... OUTSIDE!

I am with you on that. Black Widow spiders are not allowed. We also have a type of jumping spider that can cause a rash that is not allowed:

 

[vehve]

Our spiders are luckily not poisonous, so I usually just leave them be. They catch the mosquitoes and flies that I despise.

 

[Cynthia12]

Spooks Spectacular (Saturday nights) was a favorite of my sister and mine. We were so young and my parents rarely let us stay up for it.

Twilight Zone was a good one too.

I loved Twilight Zone. We get reruns here on a certain station, like to watch that once in a while, and Alfred Hitchcock..I like to look for him in them, they say he was in all of them..discreetly.

 

[Cynthia12]

It's raining!

ron, did you get rain??

Yesterday and today. What a treat, and it's coming down, along with a bit of sound from the sky.

I love summer storms.

 

[vehve]

It's raining!

ron, did you get rain??

Yesterday and today. What a treat, and it's coming down, along with a bit of sound from the sky.

I love summer storms.

Summer storms are the best. We had some thunder in the day, but the rain is following the coastline and we're too close to the sea to get any. It's really dry, we've only had 20% of the rain we usually get this summer. Hopefully we'll get some tomorrow.

 

[ronott1]

It's raining!

ron, did you get rain??

Yesterday and today. What a treat, and it's coming down, along with a bit of sound from the sky.

I love summer storms.

There is a chance of rain tonight. I hope we get some!

 

[lularat]

Not fond of spiders, but I do leave them alone if outside. Inside, they are goners. Got bit by a spider several years ago on the chin and ended up in the hospital for 3 days on IV antibiotics. As long as they are catching mosquitoes and nuisance insects, they are okay outside.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

...
When I had kids of my own and they were afraid something was under the bed, I would come in and turn the light on. Then, with a flash light, we would look under the bed together and then in the closet and every corner of the room. I don't remember having to do this very many times.

...

I always did the same for my kids.

Arachnophobia?!!! Ugh! Still very much alive in me! That and heights! No thanks to either one!

I had both but was cured. I got both from my mother. I remember a road trip to California. On the return, as we were leaving Salt Lake City heading into the mountains, the highway my dad chose because it was a fairly direct route was extremely narrow, windy and with no guard rails. My mother was so freaked out (and to her defense, it was scary) she made my father drive back to Salt Lake, go to the highway department and have them find a route home that wasn't so scary. They did it.
I remember climbing a fire tower at Taum Sauk mountain, Missouri's highest point. It was fun till I got above the tree line and I froze. Grasping the hand rail it took me about 20 minutes to retrace my steps.
Learning to ski and being constantly on chair lifts and aerial trams cured me of acrophobia. I still freaked out one time on Aspen Highlands in CO. The chair goes up at about a 60 degree grade to a peak and then crosses over to another peak. The drop is about 300' and that is to the trail, if you were lucky enough to hit the trail. More likely you'd fall to the wrong side of the ridge below which was a steep slope and one would probably slide a few thousand feet before coming to a stop. I had a camera in one hand and my ski poles in the other. When I hit the peak, I froze, gripping the crossbar with my arms. I was too scared to stick the camera in my pocket so I could hold on with both hands.
I was on a high aerial cable car going from Ischgl, Austria with some Danish friends. One of the guys was afraid of heights and he put himself in the middle of the 40 person car so he couldn't see how high he was. His cruel friends kept describing the view to him till he was slumped cowering on the floor.

My first real attempt to deal with arachnophobia was when we bought our current house. The cellar was literally solid spider webs. If there was one spider egg sac there were tens if not hundreds of thousands. The previous owner had never gone into the cellar. It was virtually empty except for the spiders and spider webs so resembled the cellar in the movie. I knew I had to eradicate them. I took two days off of work wore long sleeve coveralls, taped the cuffs to my boots, sleeves to my gloves, collar around my neck and put on a bandana. There was little uncovered skin or hair. I took a shop vac down there and sucked up everything I could. It took two whole days to get rid of everything. I have to repeat every couple years.

That helped but by the time I had so many spiders and other bugs to deal with in Costa Rica, I was pretty much over it.

My DW saw a black widow making a web under a table on the front porch. It is my job to take care of them, so I grabbed the electronic fly swatter. I was sure to be certain that it was dead, so I snapped it 5 times.

Yep, it was a gonner and quite crispy too....

When I was a kid, it seemed like every time my mother would go to the bathroom at night she'd see a spider. She'd wake my dad from a sound sleep to kill it. He'd sleepily walk into the bathroom. Not seeing anything, he'd stomp and swipe his feet on the floor to satisfy her as she'd sit in bed to hear the deed. After a while, it always sounded exactly the same and at exactly the same amount of time from walking into the bathroom. She eventually demanded to see evidence which he could never provide.

Why am I so screwed up?

Brown recluse still make me wary. A workplace friend's son was drafted by the Kansas City Chiefs. During training camp, a brown recluse had gotten into his equipment. It bit him on the bicep. Halfway through practice he collapsed. They thought he was overcome by heat and sent him home. He passed out in his apartment and was found by his girlfriend. They got him to the hospital but he ended up having severe necrosis of his bicep and never played football again.

Our spiders are luckily not poisonous, so I usually just leave them be. They catch the mosquitoes and flies that I despise.

Yes, they do have their place. Even non-poisonous spiders can leave a nasty bite. I was on a 3 day 45 mile canoe trip on the St. Francois river and there were times the overgrowth covered the river. There were always spiders dropping into the canoe. I had several big swells where I had been bitten.

 

[Sylviaanne]

I remember when I was a kid that you couldn't let an arm or a leg hang over the side of the bed or the monster could grab you and pull you under. It was terrifying if you woke up in the night and an arm was hanging off the side of the bed.

You know, I don't remember being afraid of the monster in the closet or under the bed when I was a kid. Even thinking about it now, I just don't remember being afraid of them. Hmm, maybe because I was too busy being afraid of my mother and her mercurial moods. Sometime when I was a little kid, my parents went to a drive-in movie and I got nightmares really bad for years and years. Woke up screaming. I don't remember the name of the movie now but when I saw it as an adult, that didn't cure the nightmares. It was about some kind of rock or alien rock that grew and grew and was taking over the earth until they figured out that salt water would kill them. I used to watch Dark Shadows too but I don't remember being afraid or having any nightmares from that. At sometime as a pre-teen I learned that the electrical current from a lightening strike can travel through water and zap you as you are showering or doing dishes. I think at that point is when I became afraid of thunder.

As a young married mother, now that is another story. I had a 2 1/2 year old daughter and a newborn son. One night my daughter started screaming bloody murder and I ran to see what was going on. When I reached the bedroom door my daughter was standing in her crib and pointing at the closet. Her screaming and actions so freaked me out that I was afraid to go into the bedroom. I don't have any idea now (she's 40) what I thought might be in that closet but I darted in grabbed both kids and ran back out again. My husband was outside talking to someone in our driveway and he came in and looked around and dismissed the whole incident. A few nights later I was in the room with my daughter and son when she started screaming and pointing again. What she had seen was headlights shining through the window, going around the room and stopping at the closet door. Boy, did I feel like an idiot. LOL

As far as I know I have always been a jumpy, nervous person but sometime after that is when letting any part of me hang over the edge of the bed became beyond scary. As I think of it now, I have never let any part of me hang off the bed but I don't remember being afraid that a monster was under the bed. I think my fear was always that someONE would reach out from under the bed and yank me off the bed. I don't ever remember falling out of bed but I could have. Must have, to be afraid of falling out of bed.

Both the thunder and monster under the bed have eased as I have gotten older but if there is a huge crack of thunder, you can still find me screaming and looking for cover. Chicken little and the falling sky, I guess I belong here. LOL