I’ve never met a spider I liked, or even chose to tolerate in the same room with me. As a child, I was spoiled by a fearless knight who rushed to my rescue whenever I screamed, “Eeeeeeee! A spider!” Following the point of my trembling finger he grabbed the evil beast, and ate it. My savior was a golden-eyed black cat named Pookie. I relied upon him totally.

When I got to college I expected the same sort of gallant response. My art professor, Mr. Points, was critiquing my drawing one day when a hairy brown spider crawled over the edge of my drawing board. I screamed, “Eeeeeeee! A spider!”

Mr. Points took two giant steps away from me and my attacker. His voice trembled. “I’m scared to death of spiders.” The other students watched, but no one moved.

I threw the drawing board to the floor, stood up, and stomped the intruder to a splot on the floor. That was the last time I ever screamed at the sight of a spider and waited for rescue.

National Spider Day? Go out and stomp one! You, too, can do it.

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© 2007 Cynthia Becker. Original for CCF (Becker grants CCF first electronic rights for one month; CCF may archive the material indefinitely and include it in an eBook anthology).