Spider
This sucker lived in my stairwell until recently. UGH. The only spider that I found creepier than this was the kind of cave spider alongside which you had to crawl in close proximity in the caverns I went spelunking in in West Virginia. Sheesh. Uncool. I’ll take the swallows outside my window over this thing any day for wildlife that helps me eliminate bugs.
I’d like to lie and say that I’m totally cool-headed around spiders, but I’m really not. I don’t consider myself particularly arachnophobic - because I get freaked out by other kinds of insects too. Ha ha ha. The usual method of encounter for this spider was when I’d come home and start walking up the stairs. On the deck of the stairs just below my apartment’s door, it would be standing in the middle, or clinging to a large rainpipe, or sometimes it would be on the wall or the ceiling. Walking under it was the worst. You just imagine it dropping on your head and all the flailing about and panic that would surely ensue. Thankfully, the most embarrassing moment I had with the spider was when it caught me off guard on the top step and startled me and I let out a suprised “whoa!” that was loud enough for everyone in the apartment block to hear. Whoops.
Needless to say, I fear the intrusion of insects into my abode. I have to keep fans running to circulate air (no AC) in summer. There are tissues wadded up and wedged between ceiling planks, placed there by Zoe after a heavy rain, and I’m not taking them out because they’re rumored to be insect entryways of old. I regularly spray insecticide around the seams, open holes, and drains in my apartment. I don’t want to wake up with a creepy crawly nemesis in my midst. Call me crazy, but I sleep better that way. And I sleep even better now that the body of this creepy spider was found curled up dead after a heavy storm. Sigh.