The Horrible Itch

Snapshots In My Time...
Of My Time.....Hauntings.

When people today hear the word, "Arachnophobia", they think of a preposterous Hollywood movie, but arachnophobia is a very real, serious problem for many people. It can become an obsession, affecting their everyday lives in unimaginable ways.

I have seen the movie and it makes me crazy. Spiders make me scream! Just thinking about them makes me jumpy. Even now I am jumpy. I remember when the fear set in. I was in 2ND grade and it was a Saturday morning. I woke up and had a slight itch in my head. I scratched my head off and on that morning. I had an itch that would not go away.

Okay...I did not comb my hair right away. The Saturday morning ritual was cartoons and then breakfast. And then even more cartoons. The itch persisted. This may sound like a spider urban legend but is is not. It is real. It was real.

I finally wanted to get to the bottom of that itch. I got a comb and tried to comb my hair. Maybe it was dry and it needed some oil on it. There was a small lump or what I thought was a knot of hair caught in my comb. I pulled and it did not come out. I decided to try to separate the hair and untangle the knot. When I put my fingers up there on the right side of my head. I felt movement. Small leggy movement. What the hell was it? I began to scream at the top of my lungs. My mother came running. It was a big ole' nasty spider. (I feel something moving right now in my hair. I need a drink..now!)

A big old spider was caught in my hair and he was moving those legs trying to get out of my hair. I continued to scream. (I'll be back, I am going for bourbon and ginger to calm my nerves...I kid you not...I am freaking out right now.) I could not get it out. I ran for scissors. I would cut it out. My mother grabbed the scissors and would not let me do it. She had my father hold me down and she worked on my hair. My father held my legs and arms and I continued to scream. This was no little spider. This was a big spider that had been in my hair I guess all night and was not all tangled up in my hair. I could still feel it moving. I screamed and my mother got a big book from the book shelf and said she was going to smash it. She could not get it out. It would have to be killed first and them removed.