I’m Such a Girl

I don’t like bugs.

I know that I am 50 million times bigger than the bugs I’m likely to encounter in my home, and that I could squish them, or catch and release them and that, for the most part, they can’t do much damage to me.

Despite that very logical reasoning, I am still afraid of bugs. Well, specific bugs. I don’t like pill bugs, earwigs, most spiders and millipedes or centipedes. The last two really freak me out. What do they need all those legs for? I’ve never seen an alien life form, but I’m pretty sure those things come close.

So last night, I’m reading quietly in bed, unwinding after cleaning up from a huge turkey dinner and I am just thinking of turning out the light when, from the corner of my eye, I see a huge spider sprinting across the pillow towards my face.

I shoot up, throw the covers back, scramble away from the spider and, shamefully, shriek. A quiet, rather strangled shriek, but a shriek nonetheless. This of course wakes Joe up and he says “Wha??!!” and I point, wiggling my finger madly in the direction I think the spider has gone.

“Spider! I think it went over the side of the bed!”

Joe dutifully looks as I get off the bed and stand in the doorway pointing. He finally locates the spider on the floor – probably terrified out of its tiny little mind at being pursued by people 50 million times bigger than it – and scoops it up in his hand.

I open the window as asked and Joe releases the poor thing outside. We get back into bed. Joe gets back in quickly and gratefully and I perch hesitantly on the top of the covers for a moment, imagining hordes of killer spiders waiting to feast on my feet.  I look at Joe, who is smirking. 

“It was a big spider!” I say.

He looks at me as if to say “You’re such a girl!” I laugh, because when it comes to bugs, I am. I have no problem with blood, guts, vomit, getting filthy or any of that stuff. However, most bugs freak me out.

I’m not sure what it is about bugs that makes me lose my mind. I won’t go out of my way to kill bugs just going about their business, but when they are in my bed – and the same colour as my sheets! – I get squirrelly.

I’d be the first one voted off the island if my life were a reality TV show.