The Stuff of Nightmares

The other day we were having a discussion about exotic pets, seeing as though my sister has a wide variety of weird and wonderful creatures in her possession. Eventually, inevitably, the conversation turned to owning spiders. Now, when it comes to spiders, I have this outlook on life:

I'm not the world's biggest fan of arachnids. In fact, you could say that, when it comes to spiders, I instantly turn into a little girl. And the bigger the spider, the younger the age of the little girl! But I am willing to give thousands of spider-owners around the world the benefit of the doubt. So after much preparation (which included large amounts of alcohol and some deep breathing) I gave the matter some thought. But even after some careful thought, which may have involved some involuntary whimpering, I still came to this conclusion:

It boggles my mind that people can keep spiders as pets, for a variety of reasons. First, there is the cost involved. Most pet spiders fall into the tarantula category, which makes them quite expensive. Secondly there is the fact that most of the time they just sit in their tank just staring at you, because the tank can't be too big otherwise you will never see them. Thirdly, they rarely move when it's not feeding time, and you can only stare at a stationary spider for so long. Fourth, most tarantulas have very fine hairs on their bodies that they can shed at will, causing severe skin irritation, and can give you quite a nasty bite, so handling them is best left to the truly fearless.

I have accepted the fact that I will never like spiders. To me they will always be creepy. But I've grown to tolerate them. Upon discovering a spider in my home, I now let it go with a warning, instead of immediately dealing out the death penalty as in the past. So some progress is being made. Who knows, one day I may even like them. But owning one? It'll be a cold day in hell......