A random episode in the life of Fluffy...
1996 ..I used to have a curly hair tarantula, who hated being in his cage. He'd get out a lot, and sleep on my heated waterbed. My brother was/is arachnaphobic to the point of losing control. He's also 6 years older than me. He moved back home, and was going to take over my room when I went out of town because I had the phone and cable in my room. It never dawned on me to double up the weight on top of Morty's cage, so that he couldn't climb out...
I get home from band camp (yeah, go ahead and laugh) and noticed there was something wrong right away... There were new sheets on my bed. My baseball bat was missing. And Morty's cage was empty. No one wanted to tell me what happened until after they took me out to dinner, and had me "prepared" to hear it. Dad couldn't stop cracking up telling me:
My older brother was lying in the dark on my waterbed, talking on the phone with his girlfriend, and felt something brush his leg. He said he didn't know what it was. So after it happening a few times, he turned on the lamp and saw 5 inches of hairy "hell spawn spider" crawling on the bed near his thigh. By the time my parents came into the room to find out what woman was screaming... He'd already beaten Morty to death with my baseball bat and ruined the sheets with spider blood. They bought me new sheets, and tried to act normal when I got home until they explained. As horrified as I was to hear about my pet... That's one of those moments I would have PAID to have been home with a video camera.
Ok, now.. My fears? I actually can't handle "small" spiders. Those furry oogly eyed jumping spiders freak me out. And June bugs. *shudder* The whole clicking noise/flying thing... Oh no. So not down with that. Those are probably my two worst. I can handle heights, blood, needles, darkness... But the sound of a June bug buzzing by my ear or getting caught in my hair makes me panic.