I don't understand why anyone would be scared of snakes. If you put me in bare-legged in a South American meadow with knee-length grass and told me there were snakes about, then yes, I'd be terrified. And I would certainly scream if I found a snake in the house. Their stealthy, undulating way of sneaking up to you unnoticed... so snakes are scary. But I don't understand why anyone would have a phobia about snakes, because I have a phobia of spiders, and spiders are so much more scary. You don't often see snakes in the urban Northwest, but spiders are everywhere. The Internet says you are never more than 3, 5, or 7 feet away from a spider, depending on the site, and either way I think that's DISGUSTING. Right now there are spiders all around me. And at least once a day, my thoughts stray to what Christina wrote on the blackboard during TS: "The average person digests 7 spiders a year during sleep." That is the stuff of nightmares. I mean you can't digest a snake during sleep. But spiders are different; they're small, and they don't seem to move - they are just there, as if they come with the furniture, making the whole room seem still and "watched." And then all of a sudden something spooks them and they move faster than you'd expect and it's startling and you can't breathe and your arms start twitching and every single brush of dust or carpet against your feet or swoosh of hair against your neck makes your muscles clench in fear and then you run out of the room before you've had a chance to think rationally. It's worst during the night. Whenever I enter my bedroom or bathroom, I scan the line where the wall meets the ceiling for the critters, because that's where they like to hang out. In my shower, near my bed. All those eyes, watching me. All those legs - too many legs - too long in comparison to the body - because a spider seems to think with its legs. You can't see a brain there, but unlike a clam, it's very skilled at getting around... Being in places where it shouldn't. Where you can just relax, sink back into the folds of the couch or the mess of blankets on the bed when something scuttles. Then, you lie rigid, thinking each little tickle or pinprick of air against your skin is really the footprints of eight legs scurrying over you with that mechanical motion, advancing toward your sleeping, open mouth, ready to delicately climb over your lip and into your mouth and throat, while you are sleeping and only feel a little pattering inside and perhaps a hint of eight-legged fear in your dreams. When you're awake at least you aren't helpless, you scan the room and when you find a spider, you keep watching his movements so you aren't caught unawares, so you know where it is, so you have the control in this relationship. Or you can refuse to enter the room until you get someone else to come and kill the spider. Or you can go sleep on the couch.

"One thing that people love to tell arachnophobics is that the spider is actually more afraid of you then you are of it. But the fact is this is just not true. Does the spider's heart begin to race, does its skin crawl, and does it get sweaty palms? No, I didn't think so. "

Exactly! Exactly! Hallelujah! And the further fact is these symptoms are triggered by spider habitats, not just the actual sight of the animals. It's the Potential Spider, the possibility that when you dodge that lurking web in the basement, shift the can of paint, move the old box of books in the shed or take off the garbage can lid you'll be met with eyes and legs. I should inform the reader that I felt a little prickle on my cheek while writing that last sentence, my heart stopped for a splitsecond, and my hand slapped that side of my face before I quite registered what was going on. God, spiders are REPULSIVE.