Itsy Bitsy Spider

There is an interesting (but short) article in Wikipedia about Arachnophobia. It's among the most common phobias. One theory is that it has developed mainly because most spiders are poisonous (although not necessarily lethal). But, since arachnophobia is most prevalent in Northern Europe where there are no dangerous spiders, that is perhaps not the case.'

Personally I think that that we basically find spiders disgusting (many without fear of them express that view - like d'Artagnan and me). Perhaps we're somehow programmed to feel that way. Just as we - according to sources I no longer remember - seems programmed to recognize children in a lot of species, and find them cute. And want to take care of them.

So: Kill'em all. That's what nature intended!!!!!!
 
I like spiders, especially really big ones. There's obviously something really wrong with me, though. :(
 
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Most of the really big ones are not dangerous. It's the little ones that can get you!!
 
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I just remembered what probably was an event that created my hate of the 8 legged beasts. I probably had purposefully not remembered it as a protection device.

I was in high school and had left a party from a friend's house. We had partaken in an illicit substance that was a bit hallucinogenic. This made me more adventerous than usual. It was a nicely moonlit evening, and I decided to take a shortcut through some old stomping grounds. In between our houses was a large reservoir on a hill surrounded by a few acres of undeveloped land. What was once small tidy bushes set 10 in a row, was now almost a forest of huge evergreens 20 feet wide and 25 feet tall each. I decided to walk down a rocky path, through the rows of bushes. There was barely enough room to walk between them, in between the carping branches, and the going was a little steep.

So I went off at a trot and after the 2nd or third bush, I hit a huge spider web. I felt a LARGE spider crawling on me and I swatted it away. Also I became enveloped in a messy web with plenty of bug corpses in it.

Well, that freaked me out given my mental state and I took off down the hill, flying through 3 or 4 more large webs each laden with a big fat crawling spider and tons of web debris. It reminds me of that Indiana Jones scene now that I think back on it. All these crawling insects on me and large ones at that. I remember that we had large spiders in those hills. Us kids called them violin spiders (which is slang for brown recluse), but since they aren't endogenous to San Diego, they were probably wolf spiders instead. Each about the size of a silverdollar.

It gives me shivers now that I remember it. I was horrified and came out covered with webs and dead insects, and a damaged psyche. ;)

That hillside in my youth had these fascinating trapdoor spiders. Big black things. If you searched the ground you could find craterlooking indentations. If you lightly tapped the indentation, a big black thing would jump out and scare the poop out of you!

Ok, enough of that obsession for now...
 
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Spiders are useful especially house spiders. They eat all the smaller potentially harmfully thingies (like sugar ants and cotton eating bugs) in your house. Still I could never live in australia.
 
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Why? I probably see no more spiders than you do!!
 
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I have like, major fear of sharks when Im swimming in the ocean if I think too much about it as anyone can freak themselves out I suppose. I think an in-game shark freaked me out once. But a multi-legged phobia extending to in-game and movie fantasy creatures and such? Wow, that's heavy.

Interesting and sorta bizarre… I expect it of the girls, but for guys.. I feel for you. Must be rough when you encounter one of the little guys in rl and you have to get your girl or your mom to take care of it for ya. Or call up Jaz to come vaccuum the sucker!
 
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Why? I probably see no more spiders than you do!!

That's the problem. You don't see them, they hide and then they attack and BITE you.

I've seen a lot of TV programs about the worlds most dangerous animals, and they (almost) all come from Australia. So we know how it is. Crikey!!!!!
 
And we all know that YouTube doesn't lie.

[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmRexWQhs3M ]

Haha, the best part was where the kangaroo kicked the guy in the rear. I wonder if that was real or if it was a fake (another guy in a kangaroo costume). Hard to tell with the rather poor quality of the footage.

As for spiders I don't mind them that much. I definitely do have some respect for the poisionous and potentially dangerous ones like the Black Widow, Red Back or the Sydney Funnel-Web Spider but generally I'm not really afraid of them. When in question you can at least always just step on the suckers (preferably with shoes on) and enjoy the popping sound it makes :biggrin: . Nah... spiders are OK. Spiders and I are buds.
But I absolutely hate snakes, especially poisonous ones. If you want to see me beat Usain Bolt's 100m WR then just expose me to some goddamn venomous snake. Depending on how close the snake is I might also break the high jump and the long jump world records - you know, at the same time in one freaking jump! :)
 
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I'm not particularly scared of snakes either, but they sure can startle. Last year when I had gone for a run on my summer vacation in France, a big-ass snake shot out of the bushes right in front of me — it was only sheer luck that I didn't take a glorious tumble.

There are a good many snakes there, including vipers, but in the 18 years I've been going there, I have never heard of anyone getting bitten by one. The worst animal-related injury anyone I know has had there was a very nasty insect sting — that happened to me, as it happens. I was coming downhill on a bike and hit the critter with my leg. My entire shin between the knee and the ankle and halfway around the calf, turned purple and swelled up, and the actual point of the sting developed a necrotic spot about the size of a pinhead that eventually dried up and fell out. I don't even know what it was, but it hurt like fuck. If I knew what did it, I'd probably have a serious aversion to it.
 
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I have like, major fear of sharks when Im swimming in the ocean if I think too much about it as anyone can freak themselves out I suppose.

I also have a fear of running into a shark. It's amazing though, with all the countless hours I've spent snorkling, that I've never seen one yet.
 
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I also have a fear of running into a shark. It's amazing though, with all the countless hours I've spent snorkling, that I've never seen one yet.

But have you felt one, bumping in to your body? They're the dangerous one. According to that half of Australias population that makes "Dangerous animals" shows.

For some Norway related information (Yay!), you might want to take a look at this Youtube video: Animal attack. The video is made by my son-in-law, and the animal is our cat Pascal (after the programming language).
 
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