Arachnophobia.

It's odd that until this very moment I haven't truly realized the depths of my arachnophobia. I was in the shower, reaching for my towel--I wiped my face on the edge and there, crawling up the edge, was a swarthy, thick-bellied thing heading straight up towards my fingers. I instantly shrieked and threw the towel down--but there was a sense of terror afterwards, that gave me chills that racked my body. I found myself going through species of spiders, trying to comfort myself that it was no black widow, hobo spider, brown recluse, or wolf spider (I never have forgotten that to a child of eight or younger a bite from a brown recluse is instantly fatal).

I remember when I was with my dad once, he had caught this gigantic, four-inch masterpiece in a clear glass bowl. We treated it as a case study, spending at least an hour scouring the internet trying to fit its genus and species, with no such luck. I tried to keep it around long enough to take a picture and send it in over the internet so it could be analyzed by some arachnologist in New York or something. But even looking at those pictures was a test of wills, it gave me a thrill to try and overcome the creeping feeling it gave me.

I seem to be getting that feeling again. Goodnight.