Spi-dar: A Gift or a Curse?

Today I went to lunch with 5 female friends (4 of whom I work with), and somebody just had to randomly bring up my dislike of spiders because they thought it was comical. Thanks a lot, Barb!

Apparently, Heidi didn't know about my anti-spider fetish yet, and so Barb was filling her in. I tried to help explain the situation by explaining Spi-dar. In the unabridged Bradley Family Dictionary, Spi-dar is defined as follows:

Melanie's talent, ability, gift or call it what you will that allows her to quickly sense the presence of an eight-legged creature nearby.

What happens is that I walk into a room and do a quick survey of the surrounding territory, and I can usually spot the enemy if there are any visible. Now every once in a while, an arachnid will still sneak up on me, trying to cause sudden death by making my heart stop, but most of the time, I am well aware of their presence at all times. Thus my family and I have termed this "gift," Spi-dar.

But sharing my story about this special gift of Spi-dar with Heidi just made everyone laugh more, and then Heidi started referring to my Spi-dar as a super power. She feels that I need a super hero outfit complete with a cape, magic bracelets and everything. Oh my! I don't know if I could pull off that look, Heidi.

Heidi also said she thought that an intervention might be the best route to go for a cure. All of my friends then tried to remind me of all the statistics out there, but I've heard them before. I have heard that story before about how people swallow spiders in their sleep. Nasty thought, isn't it! [shiver] But I've done my homework, people. It's just a myth.

I realize that we are outnumbered on this planet by these horrid little critters. There are approximately 2,000,000 spiders that may live in an area the size of a football field. YIKES! I don't like those numbers, and odds are there are plenty of them living in my apartment that I don't know about. But I've made a verbal agreement with them. If they keep out of sight, we can live in peace and harmony, but the second that I know they are there, one of us has to go, and it's not gonna be me! Unfortunately for the spiders, I'm usually discussing said agreement with them as I am attempting to obliterate them...