On the Subject of Spiders

I accidentally killed a spider yesterday. I was trying to fish him out of the sink so that I could use it, but the surface was too slippery for him to climb out on his own, and too wet for me to slip a piece of paper under him like I normally would because I don't let them crawl around on my hand anymore, so I was trying to scoop him out with a slotted spoon that had been nearby, and he was afraid of me so he was trying to scramble out on his own, and then he'd panic and fall down and we'd have to start all over again. After a few tries, he panicked a little too much, and his legs crumpled up and he tumbled into the bottom of the sink again. It's a bit hard watching the thing you were trying to help die right in front of you, I must admit. Out of a combination of deference to the dead and just plain laziness, I waited until this morning to do the dishes.
Spiders and I have a long, painful history. When I was very little, a certain relative of mine, who shall be referred to as “M” because she's actually a delightful person and I don't want ancient history to be running amok with her for the sake of a story, realised I was a bit afraid of spiders. Consequently, she told me many stories of how spiders devour their prey, and drink their blood, some of them eat birds whole, all of them have a deadly bite that kills stuff, and there were a few very clever works of science fiction, for which M doesn't get nearly enough credit, thrown into the mix as well. Apprehension turned into unbridled terror.

This went on for a year or so. Lights could not be safely turned off because the evil spiders were just WAITING for the chance to crawl out of the woodwork and devour me, crevasses and dark corners were visions riddled with peril. Nowhere, I quickly learned, was I safe from the terror of the arachnid. I would pull cups out of the cupboard and find them waiting for me, scrambling all over my arm while I screamed and shrieked in protest, only to run under the sink as soon as help came. I would take casual strolls in the park, fighting off hypothetical pirates, and discover them sitting complacently on a park bench.
Eventually, this issue became recognised as a potential source of trouble, and family members crowded around me with kind words and reassurances that not ALL spiders were bad, and most spiders weren't black widows. M even introduced me to the daddy-long-legs, which one could have crawl all over one safely and not even get bitten. Later, when it no longer mattered, other relatives told me that these guys are actually quite poisonous, they just don't have the capacity to bite people, but I've recently learned that this isn't true either. Gradually I realised that these terrible creatures were usually running from me when I found them, and none of them were actually big enough to knock me over, drag me to a dark alley and eat me whole as my imagination suggested. I grew out of the fear of spiders.
“M” didn't.
I'm not sure if it was the stories she told me, or watching the movie arachnophobia or what, but she became nearly as terrified of the little monsters as I had been. By the time we moved away from California, she was reduced to hysteria by the sight of them, and the house in Colorado had its fair share of spiders. I would find myself dragged out of my cosy bed and instructed to kill some hapless spider that she had found in some obscure part of her room on a weekly basis. After a while I got tired of it, and I wouldn't kill them, instead I'd pick them up and let them crawl all over my hand.

“Aw!” I'd coo, “Poor Mr. Spider. Did the mean M scare you with her screaming? It's okay, sweety, I'll take you somewhere safe...aw!”
M did not take the hint. Now, I know several other people who go rigid when they see a spider, and with them I sympathize. They are rendered non-functional by the mere existence of things that possess eight legs, I understand, and I try not to be glib about their plight, but if you have the power to scream and run around with flailing arms, you have the power to do a lot of other things, like pick up a shoe and throw it, in M's case with reasonable accuracy. I did not see how my involvement was necessary.
Things came to a head when we moved into the second house in Colorado. I remember hanging about in the kitchen around lunchtime one day, making myself something delicious, while M had the telephone in thrall on the hammock in the backyard. All was well, life was peaceful, corn chips were a good idea. Then the pleasant hum of normal life was shattered by an ungodly scream.
What?! What could it be? Murder? Rape? Fire? Did Pikes Peak turn into a volcano? I don't know, and yet M was in the yard, screaming relentlessly. At last, words emerged. “E!!!!!! E! There's a SPIDER on the fence, E! Kill it! Kill it! Kill it!”
Spiders are supposed to be on fences. They belong, if anywhere, on a fence, defending our borders from the evil Annoying Insect masses. This is nothing, positively nothing, to scream about. So I opened the back door and screamed back. “M! You are a PRESBYTERIAN! It was PREDESTINED for you to encounter that spider so GET OVER IT!”
The screaming stopped. M came in. She was probably mad at me, she might be mad at me now for continuing to tell this story. I was never asked to kill another spider again, and in general, unless I am left with no alternatives, I don't.
Also, the next time my parents met up with our next door neighbours, the neighbours said, “so, you guys are Presbyterians, huh?”