when i was about 6 or 7 (can't remember) we lived in the staff house of a small church camp. my father was the camp administrator and i spent most of my day running around in the woods with my golden retriever. one day, i was home and playing with a tonka airplane in the entryway of our house. and since i was playing with the airplane, i spent a lot of time looking up. that's when i saw it.

up on the ceiling, a spider. of course, i hadn't really seen that many as they usually got eaten by snakes or flying turtles or god knows whatever eats spiders in the woods. so i look up at it, since it's practically right above me.

BAD MOVE.

so the spider leaps from the ceiling like an army ranger hell-bent for glory and fire, RIGHT INTO MY @#*(!$ EYE. needless to say, the sight of this black, quarter-sized alien leaping downward towards my face had frozen my muscles into little iron rods. as it landed RIGHT INTO MY ##$%*! EYE it decided that the best first move, of course, would be to bite.

AND SO THE SPIDER BIT MY EYE

i began to scream and claw at my face. the spider, like a commando trapped behind enemy lines, saw that his prospects were grim. he was stuck in the eyesocket of a creature many times his size. continually biting, the creature's plaintive wails were a deafening blast of sound and vibration, his meaty, pink claws grasping and pushing him from one edge to another. it was time to implement his only possible exit strategy. leaping from his pit of tactical disadvantage, he crossed the bridge of this giant's nose and down into the secondary target.

AND SO THE SPIDER BIT MY OTHER #*$(IN' EYE

by this time, i am panicking and there is goo and tears running down the front of my face. the spider, knowing that i am blind, begins to frantically bite-bite-bite my eyelid and eyeball. i panic. i begin to run, trying to reach the sink to wash my face. only i run the wrong way and plow headfirst into the doorknob at full speed.

AND SO I KNOCKED MYSELF OUT WITH AN ANGRY SPIDER ON MY FACE.

as i lay there, the spider getting a few last jabs in, i think to myself: "what have i done to offend god?" and then pass into darkness.

now, you might say 'we all have horrible childhood trauma' and i will say 'yes, of course.' but in the back of my mind, every fear is a spider. every creepy sensation, every tickle of anxiety. every painful stab of a needle. anything, everything dreadful, a spider. there is no shoe big enough. no hammer or board or video game system or priceless work of art important enough to smash *every* spider. i can't even take pleasure in their death. i know i have killed a mortal enemy who spied on me every waking moment waiting for the chance to get in my ear or sink his little needles into my flesh. a mortal enemy with 10 billion brothers, waiting in the wings with hungry dagger fangs.

it is not 'victory'. there will never be 'victory'. there is only the loud shoe-thump of payback; time after time after time.

so yes, in summary: i really hate spiders.

strangely, i do enjoy Warren Ellis' Transmetropolitan. and search engines. both have spiders. see how magnanimous i can be?