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THE FRONT PORCH — I'm not scared of spiders. When I was a toddler, my mom once found me playing with a black widow in the garage. While she was mortified, I was just excited about the fascinating little friend I had discovered.
Despite this general love for spiders, I have actually had one arachnid experience that terrified me. I was at a family reunion at Henrys Lake in Idaho. My cousin and I were both 9 years old, and anxious to go on an adventure. We found a large tree stump near one of the lake's inlets, rolled it into stream and then climbed aboard as it drifted out into open water.
Due to the long, twisted roots that extended outward from the bottom of the trunk, we named it the "USS Squidship." We had no idea how we'd steer the vessel or ever make it back to the cabin where our families were staying (which was now a few hundred yards away), but we were thrilled to be taking part in this maiden voyage.
What we didn't know was that the USS Squidship was home to dozens of large spiders. As the water eventually began seeping into the bark, desperate spiders came crawling out of their hiding places. We tried to swat them away but there were just too many of them.
Soon, we were covered from head to toe by spiders. Fishermen in a passing boat heard our cries and came to the rescue. They weren't too excited about dragging a couple of spider-infested kids into their boat, but they were nice enough to shuttle us back to shore.
I bring up this story because even the bravest of us have our spider moments. As seen in the following video, these moments probably happen a lot more often for those who have arachnophobia.
I love how quickly the situation escalated for this fellow. Stumbling back onto the steps is an understandable reaction to an unexpected spider sighting. But the way that he then rolled off into the dirt shows just how panicked he really was.
"I'm terrified of spiders," he explained in the video's description. "And on the way to work I came about an inch away from walking into a web with one of Satan's little minions in it."
Poor guy. Hope he recovered from his fall and can steer clear of Satan's little minions in the future.
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