Along Came a Spider, Who Sat Down Beside Her by June Kosier

“I thought I saw a spider, but it was just a piece of yarn.  It’s dead yarn now.”

Writing on a shirt

Like most girls, at the age of ten, I was afraid of spiders. I grew up during the ‘60’s in Poestenkill, New York which was a country town with lots of spiders.  Dad was my hero because he would annihilate bugs for me.  A simple killing just would not do.  I needed to know they were never coming back to life, especially the spiders.  Better safe than sorry.  At the time, plastic bugs became the rage.  My parents, being party people and crazy, would put them in ice cubes which they served in cocktails.  Fortunately, I was too young to drink.  Just looking at bugs in the ice cube trays made me shudder.

One morning, I was eating breakfast at the kitchen table.  I was alone in the house.  Dad had gone to work and Mom was hanging laundry on the clothes line out back.  I looked down at the floor and there by my right foot was the biggestblackest, hairiest, most ferocious looking arachnid.  It was bigger than a silver dollar so I was sure it was fake.  I had never seen such a big spider before.  I thought my mother was trying to pull a prank on me, but I wanted to be sure.  I moved my foot.  Nothing happened.  So, I took my paper napkin and dragged it carefully over the body.  If the spider was alive, I did not want it to run up my leg, you see.  It again, did not move.  I summoned up my courage, bent over and blew on it.  Same lack of response.  I wanted a second opinion, so I called Kap, my father’s hunting dog.  He sniffed the spider and walked away.  I decided then it really was plastic and not wanting to be a victim of my mother’s prank, bent over to pick it up.  It ran further under the kitchen table and screaming, I ran out the door.   Like little Miss Muffett, he or she frightened young Miss Hannay away.  I am sure this incident took ten years off my life.

Some say killing a spider is bad luck. Today, because I am a gardener, I know spiders are good for the garden.  They capture and kill bad bugs.  I leave them alone outside to do their good work.  However, in the house, they are dead spiders.  I don’t care if it is bad luck.