Spiders. Ewww.

They have too many legs, for starters. Any creature in possession of more than four legs needs to be smacked with a rolled up newspaper. Unless it's one of those really big nasty wolf spiders that's capable of ripping the newspaper out of your hand and smacking you back. Those things need to be smacked with an anvil.

They're fascinating wee beasties, to be sure. Once when I was small I saw one of those little fuzzy jumping spiders creeping up the side of the chicken house, stalking a fly. I hovered over them as the spider inched forward, now scuttling a whole inch, now freezing as its quarry turned towards it. Finally the spider was poised, quivering, just behind the fly, and then it sprang! and Mr. Fly was spider poo.

I read somewhere that at any given time, one is within three feet of a spider. This is information I could have lived without. The way they move creeps me out. They skitter. They're the only living creatures that have the ability to skitter, except for kittens, and kittens have the advantage over spiders in that they're cute and fuzzy and they don't have poisonous fangs that cause oozing necrotic wounds.

I fully understand that they occupy an important place in the ecosystem, and without them the insects would take over the world and turn over management to Disney, and they won't hurt you unless you hurt them (actually, I cry "Bullshit!" at that statement, having been chased down a Hobby Lobby aisle by a wolf spider with a bad attitude and Murder on its mind) and yadda yadda yadda. Fine. Let them go about their business more than three feet from me. Icky little things.

The only movie that ever made me scream out loud was Arachnophobia. And I'm the girl who once watched Faces of Death while eating a big plate of spaghetti. Those eyes...those dead eyes on that horrible malevolent spider...stuff of nightmares, that is. Yeah, I know it was a puppet. I don't like those things, either, but that's another story.

One time I was lying in bed and I noticed a spider crawling across my ceiling; one of those nasty fuzzy black ones. I watched it narrowly as it inched its creepy way directly over my head - and then let go! I approached the speed of light as I exited my bed, and spent 30 minutes tearing my covers apart trying to locate the foul thing. I couldn't find it. I spent the night on the couch. I am convinced that the horrid thing did it on purpose; it was probably hanging out in its web, getting pretty bored, not much action since we hung up the no-pest strips, so it decided to wander out and find someone to traumatize. Mission accomplished, hideous fiend.

I really have no point, other than that I don't like spiders. Some people do, I know, and I regard these people with deep suspicion. But hey, as long as they keep their eight-legged freaks away from me, we can all get along.