From Obsession to Phobia

It’s probably a good time for me (and you?) to move off the topic of pacifiers and sleeping patterns. So, I’ll take this time to discuss another obsession, or should I say phobia. On Wednesday night, I had just finished feeding Baby Z his bottle. He was playing in “the office” (what we call his Baby Einstein activity center) and I was eating dinner on the couch. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a small black object dart around the corner of the Kleenex box on our coffee table. Small black thing moving fast? I jumped about 3 feet and ended up at the farthest place in the room from the thing. After starting to breath again, I inched back toward it to see what it was. S.P.I.D.E.R. It was black and furry with some yellow dots on it. Bad enough already. But what was hugely frightening for me was how FAST it could move. The minute I moved toward it at all, it would jump/run quickly in the other direction.
I have a mild (okay extreme) phobia of spiders and any other bug with jumping or erratic flying patterns (grasshoppers, Japanese beetles, June bugs). My reaction to this spider was by far the worst I have ever had. I was sweating and shaking; my heart was pounding. I started to hyperventilate. I was practically paralyzed in my living room.
John was at work (he’s been working late all week) and I really didn’t want to bother him. I thought about who else I could call. My brother lives not too far away, but he’s almost as scared of spiders as I am. I considered knocking on the door of the 13-year-old boy down the street who I once paid five dollars to catch a flying beetle in the house. I finally called John, hoping he could just calm me down. Once I was on the phone with him, that kind of backfired because I immediately lost it even more. He decided to come home.
After a 20 minute search for the hairy little bugger, John was ready to convince me that the spider must have left the house. I had an overwhelming anxiety that it was somewhere in my chair where I feed Baby Z. John agreed to search it to humor me. And low and behold, the bastard was lurking there under the fold of a blanket. I still have to take deep breaths just thinking about it.
Cutting to the chase (or capture), John caught the spider and we still have it in a jar with tape around the top. I may be attempting to de-phobia myself. Or maybe we just can’t stand to open the jar to kill it or let it go. Anyway, hopefully he dies before I have the urge to name him.
Here is the type of spider, appropriately named the Bold Jumper.