The Toilet Seat Dilemma

[Clueless Morgan]

How did you get better? I tried flooding myself once by doing a paper on sexual dimorphism in spiders, so I had to learn all about them and look at many pictures, which a lot of people thought would solve the problem. It made it worse.
Fun fact: male spiders fertilize females by oral sex.

We had to do a project on spiders when I was in third grade. All that does to a person with a phobia is to know all the ways their phobia is a living, breathing nightmare.

And I should preface this by saying I'm probably not that much "better" but I feel like I'm getting better at dealing with them because I've progressed past the stage of 100% pure panic and screaming when I see one. I'm to a place of initial panic-flight response and momentary coexistence while I either find someone to kill it for me or spend about ten minutes plotting the best way to do it myself. My strategies include:
1) Throwing heavy things at it, like shoes, boots, encyclopedias, etc.
2) Smashing it with the handle-end of a broom (which I will then have to throw out, or have someone clean off, disinfect and put in the garage for at least a month before I'll use it again)
3) getting out the vacuum and using the 5 foot long hose attachment to suck it up, and then putting the vacuum away in the room farthest from my bedroom
4) Depending on size, color and location I found it at, I might be able to bring myself to cover it with some opaque contain for later disposal by someone else, or I might be able to smash it with the binding-edge of a book, or maybe a shoe box, or a heavy-soled shoe, but definitely something that keeps any part of my body at least 8 or 9 inches away from it. Depending on how badly I'm shaking, I might actually wound it.

And don't let me talk myself up too much: during the ordeal of trying to kill the last one I saw (just last month or so), I was shaking, I couldn't look directly at it or I would have started crying, and it I was in the process of both cowering away from it while standing on a stool and engaging in preparatory calming breathing techniques trying to get myself to stop shaking when it jumped/fell off the wall. All bets were off at that point - I screamed, began crying, fell off the stool and bolted out of the bedroom. Then I had to pull myself together enough to go to work because I sure as fuck wasn't spending the day in a house with a spider in it!

But I cannot deal with black ones. Or big ones. Or hairy ones. Or spindly ones.

I hate those jumping ones that wave their nasty little eyes around. And the big stripy ones. And the widows and recluses. And really all of them except the teeny tiny green ones.

I have size and color limitations: if it's larger than 1/8" diameter, including legs, then there's no way I can kill it myself, especially not if it's black, or dark-colored. And if it's black, of any size, the game's over, someone else has to kill it.

You went to New Zealand...why? Tell me it wasn't for the sheep, please! say it ain't so!

Went to visit my sister who was living there at the time.

[quote]That last ones my favorite There's a spider out there that will literally chase you…They claim its the worlds most aggressive spider. I'm told it lives on the opposite side of the island (from where I'm moving) though

WHAT?!?!? WHY DID YOU JUST TELL ME THAT?!?!?!

[quote='missluckie26' pid='537942' dateline='1383667340']
on a side note I found myself checking the toilet seat last night. and the tp roll. and the towel before drying my hands on it..

I've found so many spiders in my bathroom that it's habit for me to walk in and scan the wall/ceiling crack for them.

And I've has a spider turn up on the toilet paper roll before. One of those moments where if I hadn't been on a toilet already I would have shit myself. lol