They're out to get me

I’m not paranoid, but the amount of attacks that have been launched on me recently is taking place much too often to be considered coincidental; I think spiders are out to get me. But before you think I’m crazy, hear me out:

As a photographer, it’s a must to get as near to my subjects as I possibly can. And though I have captured some detailed shots of creatures that may be deemed heinous-looking at best, I am ridiculously and slightly irrationally afraid of every single eight-legged, air-breathing arthropod.

A few months back at the last place I was living, I woke up in the morning with what appeared to be a small bug bite in the center of my cheek. At first, it was kind of small so I didn’t worry too much about it, but by the end of the day, it appeared as though I was carrying around a prenatal pimple ready to inflict embarrassment upon me. But it didn’t stop there. It grew and grew to about the size of a quarter – something that I couldn’t pretend was just a unique beauty mark. And I soon learned that it wasn’t a pimple, but rather a bite from my worst enemy. It had gotten me in my sleep, which in turn robbed me of any sleep, further nights down the road. Where did it come from? Are there more? Are there spider babies in my face? All kinds of comforting thoughts ran through my head on a nightly basis each time I laid my head down to rest. And just as the growth I was wielding around with a wheelbarrow started to subside back into what looked like my face and I felt more comfortable walking around outside again, darkness struck again. Another member of that freaky family leapt onto me, looking surely for skin to prey upon. I did what any normal two-legged, rational person would do if they had a creepy thing the size of an eraser top crawling on them: I threw up my arms and went screaming in circles.

Though I escaped – narrowly, I might add – this wouldn’t be the last time I would have to perform an act of heroism to rid myself of such beasts. In fact, the raids would soon seem endless. The next attack would come a day later, when one was waiting for me atop my car, staring me down with all 300,000 of his leering eyes. Another came the next day, when a step-sibling was waiting for me around a corner of my building at work, slowly dropping down from the ceiling. A double-dose came later that evening as I was stepping out of the shower and a member of the clan reached for a towel at the same time I did. This is definitely not a coincidence anymore.

The top of the assaults came yet the following day later. A distant cousin of the last monster took this completely unwarranted and unknown vendetta a step further and launched a small-scale invasion on my head and into my hair while I was driving, which went over particularly well on his part…I happened to be in the middle of a phone interview parked in my car when I felt that distinct tickling as it worked through my mane and again behaved as one might expect. I launched my phone across the passenger’s seat and threw open my door and went screaming down the side of the road.

So at this point, I would just like to publicly apologize for whatever it is that I have done to the entire spider species and please ask that they consider mercy as I cannot take looking over my shoulder or going through another sleepless night. I’m sorry. I will never look at another spider web the same ever again.