Susan Hogarth wrote:

I also grew up with them but I'm phobic of them. I sometimes wonder if such
fears are at least partly under genetic control. Centi/millipedes also bother me
quite a bit.

I know they can be learned. I learned my spider phobia from my mother.
She still can't bare the thought of me picking up a spider on a
piece of paper to dumb it outdoors.

It's nice to get over those things. I have a friend who grew up in SLC, Utah,
and had never seen ticks. For the longest time she would call me up to de-tick
her dog if she finds one on him. On the other hand, she had never seen a firefly
(which is a bizzarre thought to me) and only half-believed in them before she
came here. She was delighted to find that they were as wonderful as described.

I really don't like ticks either. tick=spider and bad spider at that.
I remember being woken up by the feel of a tick crawling on me in the
middle of the night years ago when my ex snuck our german shepherd into
the bedroom. (I'm allergic to dogs and the one place I can not have
them are in the bedroom. Of course he always thought I was lying.)

Of course, any wolf spider
that again stumbles into my house is a gonner.
:-(

This one was particularly dastardly as she dumped her babies before she
made a run from us. Several months later, I discovered a dead wolf
spider in the bottom of a nuked cup of coffee. (dark midnight blue
coffee cup stored on the bottom shelf of the kitchen island cabinet) I
presume it was one of those babies all grown up.

(The same uncle who smeared ham fat all over the bumper of his car so
that when we got to the garbage dump to see the bears, we could see
one up close. We did.)

Ah, a park ranger's nightmare ;-)

Not in this case - just a public menace. *grin* We were truly at the
city garbage dump in Colville, WA. Most nights you will see black,
brown and cinnamon bears all down there munching away.

Susan
s h simko at duke dot edu