The Day I Stopped Fearing Small Spiders

When I was young - ah, a century ago, it doth seem! - I used to be afraid of spiders: those tiny, jumping ones as well as their skinny, thin-legged brethren.

And then...I moved to Penang.

Even then, I was still afraid of spiders in general. Worse, I began to get regular visits from huge, hairy spiders. They popped up everywhere, anytime - bedroom, bathroom, car...

Then came the 22nd of June, 2007. 'Twas a Friday afternoon, and the beginning of the end...a gigantic baby jungle spider came too close for comfort.

Then Saturday night, 23rd of June 2007 - that baby spider's big uncle came for a visit (well, I assume it was an uncle. Might've been a hairy aunt for all I know...) to my room just as I switched off the room lights. I could see its big, ugly silhouette against the white wall in the room. Darn, I thought to myself, I have to deal with this! So I woke my roommate up...

She began hitting at it, or at the wall beneath it anyway. So where did that big, ugly monstrosity go to? Right behind my cupboard, that's where. It didn't go to my roommate's side of the room. Nooo, that would not have been fun for it. It had to torture a poor girl. Guess how much sleep that poor girl got that night? She was thinking that she couldn't take it any longer. She was desperate, cornered.

Sunday, 24th June 2007 - the big ugly monstrosity scuttled out at night, again. She'd been sort of expecting it...an intuition...spider-sense, perhaps? Filled with resolve, she began to move her things away from where she expected the spider to fall. She got a can of insecticide, rolled up her sleeves, and started spraying. It fell onto her desk. She took a roll of wrapping paper and started hitting the area around it in hopes of getting it off her table before squishing it (so it wouldn't make a mess on her table), but her roommate awoke due to the noise. Roommate promptly took over spider-smashing duty, when...

"Aaaah!!! Ada ular!!!!!!!!!!!" screamed the maid... (Translation: Aaaah!!! Snake!!!!!!!!!!!)

True enough, there was a black snake in the maid's room, a few feet long but not very thick. A young snake...wrong place, wrong time, wrong species. Its life was cut off, as was its head. Or rather, squashed off. Snake brains all over the place. Meanwhile, the-girl-who-used-to-be-scared-of-spiders was guarding the spider in case it made a mad dash towards the safety of the wall behind her cupboard again.

After her roommate disposed off the snake, she helped the girl get rid of the spider.

Then on Wednesday, 27th June, only the maid and I were at home. I was just getting ready to watch Heroes, when...

"Aaaah!!! Ada ular!!!!!!!!!!!" screamed the maid... Déjà vu, and the chance of becoming a hero(ine).

So the maid and I disposed off the snake together. It didn't even look like a snake when we were through with it...

After the experiences, I'm no longer afraid of tiny spiders. I can't say the same for certain about big spiders, though, as I've yet to encounter one after the incidents. As for snakes, well, I'm only afraid of them when I'm not sure if they're poisonous - or sure that they're poisonous. I'm perfectly fine with non-poisonous snakes.

There. That was my tale. Sounds incredible, doesn't it? Even I wouldn't blame you if you disbelieved me, though you would be wrong.