To “come by something honestly” means to inherit a trait – usually from one’s parents. In my case, I am terrified of spiders, just like my mother.
As the story goes, when I was barely old enough to walk, my parents were in a hurry to get to the lumber store. They put on my shoes, loaded me up, and we headed to town. Shortly after we arrived, I became inconsolable. Eventually, mom said she took off my little shoe and a large spider crawled out. It was, apparently, biting my foot and the source of my sudden discomfort.
I don’t remember this event and I don’t know if it lends at all to my arachnophobia or whether I simply learned to fear spiders through observing my mom’s own eight-legged hysteria.
Mom has had a lot of opportunities to be frightened by spiders, in part due to my dad’s mischievous streak and love of all things creepy-crawly.
I can’t count the number of times dad turned a jar or mini cooler into a cozy biodome for a fanged, furry abomination – usually on the kitchen counter or table for optimal viewing. Just the suggestion the creature might escape, with or without help, sends mom into a tizzy.
Also, living in the country in an old farmhouse with outbuildings lends itself to regular run-ins with arachnids. The barn and garden spiders at my childhood home grow giant and plentiful, and the old well and rarely-used storage sheds are perfect breeding grounds for black widows and wolf spiders. Ever since my parents started keeping the chickens, ducks and geese confined to a fenced-in plot of pasture, the spiders have no real natural enemies … just a few humans that usually run screaming in the other direction.
Once, I remember playing in the (unfinished) basement at my parents’ house. When I finally came upstairs, into the bright, fluorescent lights of the kitchen, we discovered I had a giant, jointed, multi-eyed tagalong, which fell to the floor when I entered the room. We welcomed the creature upstairs with a lot of hooting and hollering and frenzied dancing. I think he or she eventually disappeared underneath the dishwasher before we worked up the nerve to get near it with the flyswatter.
Sometimes, at night, I’d wake up to use the bathroom and find a spider in the sink. I don’t know if they have a tendency to hide in the drain until the lights go out, but it was a relatively common occurrence. Most often, I’d run the water until the problem went away. There was many a night, however, after returning to my bed, I’d lie awake and worry the spider was crawling back up the drainpipe and out of the sink, seeking revenge.
Yesterday, I spotted a fly in my living room. While I do find flies to be a nuisance and appreciate – in theory – anything that controls the insect population, I’d be grateful for a more behind-the-scenes approach, especially if the hunter is excessively large, fuzzy, jumpy or aggressive.
Is that too much to ask?
