Arachnaphobia

Whenever Franny has something big coming up, like a trip to California, or some other major change or adjustment, I make her a simple little book with pictures and a story that we read over and over, to prepare her for the event. There are four installments of the Franny series so far: Franny's Christmas in California, Franny goes to School, Nona Comes to Visit, and Franny goes to Kansas. The latest one I'm working on is Franny Goes Potty. I was searching for pictures of Starburst (the candy) so I could include that in her book since that will be one of her reinforcers and I found this picture:

It's a picture of a Mombasa Golden Starburst Baboon Spider. It totally gave me the chills when I first saw it and I keep thinking about it. I have a completely irrational fear of spiders. They freak me out! When I see one in my home, I want it dead immediately and I usually kill it with way more force than necessary. And because I'm so indignant over the spider's intrusion of my domicile, I usually let out some angry final words like, "Die, spider, die!!!" Yet, I love the movie Arachnaphobia. Every once in a while it's on USA or TBS or something, and I have to stop and watch it. I love to be scared. I really enjoy a great scary movie every once in a while. Most of my friends can't stand to sit through a scary movie, and I don't think Bobby minds me saying that he's not particularly fond of them either.

Speaking of phobias, Bobby is scared of snakes. He and I have some great snake stories and I thought it would be fun to share one with you. When we were dating in Utah, we liked to hike different trails from time to time, and sometimes we would go to the hot springs in Spanish Fork.

Well, one afternoon as we were hiking up to the springs, Bobby saw a gardener snake and he freaked out momentarily. I think maybe this was the first time I realized just how much he hated snakes, so I thought I'd have a little fun. I startled him with, "OH MY GOSH!!!" and pointed to the side of the trail as if I had seen a snake. I got the reaction I was looking for, but it came at a price: 12 minutes without Bobby's friendship. Apparently, that was the penance that Bobby found appropriate for my betrayal. He wouldn't hold my hand or talk to me for 12 minutes! I found this amusing, but it made for a really boring walk up to the hot springs, so I learned my lesson. Well, as we were sitting in the hot springs, which sat along side a rushing river, I was looking around and spotted a 4 foot long bright yellow snake across the river from us slithering along the bank. I started to tell Bobby about it, but then reconsidered and sat quietly. He couldn't see the snake because he didn't have his glasses on, but he started to wonder what I was looking at so I told him. All of the sudden, the snake starts fighting the rapids and is heading in our direction. Slow and determined, it crossed the river until it was exactly where we were. (By then of course we were out of the water, with clothes over our swim suits and our shoes on ready to run. I had to beg Bobby to let me take a picture so we could tell our kids and all of you about it.) I wish I had the words to adequately paint a picture of this big yellow snake fighting the water with it's little head poking up. I didn't know it was possible for a snake to accomplish something like that. I wish that I could go back in time with my digital camera and take some footage of this snake's journey across the roaring rapids. It was amazing. I scanned a picture of the snake into my computer so you could see just how big it was. Okay, okay, I may be exaggerating when I say "roaring rapids" and "rushing river," but the water was moving very quickly down these big rocks. It was really impressive. Maybe the snake could smell Bobby's snake fear and wanted to have some fun with us.