stung as a child

A lot of folk ask me why I hate spiders. They ask me if I was stung as a child. Nope, I wasn't bitten, stung or beaten by spiders. It was worse than that.
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It was psychological trauma. See, I wasn't even scared of bugs till I was around 9 years old. I was in my Florida-home backyard, helping my Dad move some planks of wood off a huge junk pile. The pile had been there forever. I don't know why my parental guardians didn't think that a kid moving old wood was dangerous. It's not like there are any bugs in Florida.
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Jumpin' Gee-Hoe-See-Fat! The sunshine state is a breeding ground of pestilence. Palm fronds, moisture, heat, shrubberies, trailer parks. Bugs are everywhere! Roaches. Big psychotic roaches. That's a whole nuther blog subject right there. Mosquitoes. Palmettos bugs. Wasps. Yellow jackets. Every evil creature that is looking for blood to suck comes to Florida. Just ask Jeb Bush.
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So I lifted up one particularly large sheet of panelling and as we threw it over, a swarm of wood spiders erupted from underneath. It looked like a helicopter view of a riot in progress. Those wood spiders were nasty- they could jump really far and were extremely hyper. If you came near em, they'd jump at you. I still don't know how a spider could contemplate attacking a giant human. I'd be scared to attack a Brontosaurus, even tho they don't bite.
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These wood spiders don't bite either, they aren't poisonous, but they are CREEPY. I remember studying them when I was little, and I thought they couldn't see me observing them- cause I was so big. But as I leaned in to look at em, they'd move to one side- anticipate my movement and turn around to face me. Like they are yelling: "Comon, COMON! Bring it, meatsack!" Maybe they were just bluffing, but that is also creepy that they would know to do that. Just downright all around creepy.
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I was already skittish at the moment the hoard of barbarian spiders ran up into my bell bottoms. (Bell bottoms- what a dream for creatures trying to climb up your pant leg) My nervous system was more than nervous- it told my brain that thousands of little hairy tentacles were working their way North in my pants. My brain passed out.
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I had no commander in chief now- so my nervous system took the wheel. I somersaulted up and over my Dad's head and sprinted across the yard while speaking, no- yelling in tongues. I vaulted my neighbors fence, startling her as she read by her pool, and dove in. I remember her face as she saw mine. Shock. Sheer shock.
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You must understand that as I came over the fence, (Western style) I had already ripped my pants down. But I couldn't get em over my shoes. Honestly, I don't know how I was able to move. My expression was that of someone who was having an alien chew out of their stomach- plus I was sobbing and screaming.
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Have you ever heard anyone sob and scream at the same time? (It's entertaining- as long as it's not you) I hit the water of the pool and thrashed wildly about, trying to get out of my skin. I don't really know if any spiders got into my clothes, but little bits of bark and possible spider refuse were floating nearby. That made me really crazy.
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You know how when you're in a pool, and something unsavory is floating towards you, like a wrapper or a waterbug or a baby in a diaper on a floaty, and the more you move back, the more the current pulls the object closer to you? Yeah, well, I had a vortex going in the pool that day.
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The authorities came and netted me out of the pool with that long blue flyswatter thing. I was wet and stressed out, I looked like a mangy dog pulled up from the Katrina carnage. My pants were off and I was standing there dripping in my spider man underoos. I don't remember my neighbor saying anything to me- she looked as scared of me as I now was of the spiders. I kept glancing toward the ground, kept looking for them....
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Now whenever I see black lint or a wad of black thread on the floor, I stop and give it my full attention. I am still looking for them.......
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And yes, Spider Man creeps me out too.