Eight legs. Terrifying beady eyes. Two fangs. And a whole lot of notoriety. Spiders–a deadly arachnid spreading fear through the halls of Woodland.

I have always been terrified of spiders. If I see one, I scream and run away no matter the circumstance. I hadn’t had an encounter with an arachnid for quite some time, until one night. I walked into the bathroom minding my own business when I saw it. A giant black spider–no. The king of spiders, probably around the size of a quarter, waving his arms at me in a ‘come at me’ fashion. I did what any normal person would do: scream bloody murder, launch myself out of the room and surrender the bathroom to him.

The next day I was incredibly careful in the bathroom, checking any spot he could have been hiding. It was only when I let my guard down that night to shower when he appeared once more. I was mere seconds away from getting into the shower when he dropped down right in front of me, waving his arms at me once more. I screamed bloody murder, and ran away for backup, in the form of my step dad armed with a fedora, lasso, and tissue. Looking for the spider he turned into Indiana Jones searching for the ancient treasure. When my step dad finally found the colossal spider he let out a “Wow, that’s big” and promptly squished the gigantic beast. [pullquote]“You can just step on them,” states Meade.[/pullquote]“

I wish I could pick up a napkin and kill a spider as if it was no big deal, but my fear makes me unable to do this. Unlike me, Helen Meade, Woodland Junior, claims that killing spiders is simple and there is no reason to fear them.

“You can just step on them,” states Meade.

Woodland freshman, Dalal Hussein, also has no issue with spiders.

“It has something to do with phobias. A lot of people have phobias from spiders and they just creep them out or the look of the spider might creep them out,” Hussein states. “But I’m mostly just chill with it. I don’t know why.”

When it comes to spiders, I have no “chill”. I fear that if I do not kill them fast enough then they will kill me. Woodland freshman, Anna Nichols, has a fear of spiders similar to mine.

“Even though they’re small, they have so many legs. And they go quickly, they run around. And, you know, honestly, I just, I hate them. I don’t know why. It’s just a fear I have,” Nichols states.

While I completely agree with the valid points that Nichols brings up, others such as freshman, Zach Drewery, do not.

“I’m not really scared of any bugs or anything like that,” Drewery states. “I was just I’ve always I was always outside growing up. So like, I’m so used to seeing stuff like that, that it never really affected me.”

Though Drewery claims being outside a lot helped him to not fear spiders, others claim the opposite. Casey Brooks, Woodland junior, spent much of her childhood outside and once had a terrifying encounter with many, many spiders.

“When I was in seventh grade, I broke my phone and it was $200 to pay it off. So my parents made me weed the garden to pay it off for twenty five hours and I stepped on a spider egg and all the spiders started crawling all over me,” says Brooks. “I screamed so loudly, I started sobbing. I ran up my hill and into my pool with all my clothes on and I just sobbed the rest of the day. Since then I just can’t even be near a spider without starting to shake or holding back tears.”

Brooks in not the only Woodland student with a horrifying spider story. Joe Pastore, Woodland freshman, has an eerily frightening story about when his mom was younger.

“She used to live in Arizona. There was a Black Widow under her chair. And she didn’t have anything, so she got a lighter and it popped and the venom went all over her face,” states Pastore.

These two very different stories bring about the same conclusion: spiders are evil. And while my bathroom foe may be gone, many of his family members have been spotted scouting my house and most likely plotting my death. So, if this is truly the end I leave you with one piece of advice: avoid spiders at all costs and if you are spotted killing one (or in my case, having someone else kill it) your best option is to move before his/her friends come for revenge.

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