What’s big, hairy, and sometimes poisonous? Tarantulas!
When I think of spiders, I can’t stop saying the word “ew” in my mind. I’m pretty sure most of you guys are either disgusted or afraid of spiders, or both. Ever since I was a kid, I have always been disgusted and extremely scared of spiders of any kind. If I ever spotted one in my house, I would yell out for my brother or dad to come and kill it.
So one day during my Speech 101, back at my community college, my teacher was giving us ideas about our speech topics. He had mentioned that we could bring things to class; kind of like a show and tell. I don’t know what exactly I was thinking, but my bright idea was to bring a huge tarantula to class, because I knew nobody else would do that. After class I drove to a shop called Scales & Tails in Burbank. I was about to face one of my biggest fears. The shop had over 20 different types of tarantulas, and there was one that was a cobalt blue. That was the most beautiful spider I had seen, but she was too pricey to buy just for my speech class. Around the $20 range, the worker showed me “the Chilean Rose” tarantula. She was covered in reddish-orange hair, and it looked almost pink. He took her out of her little box and held her right before me. Words cannot explain the amount of fear I was feeling. I was afraid to move, thinking the tarantula would jump on me. The worker put her back in the box and asked me what I thought. Honestly, I don’t think I was thinking at that time, because I bought her!
I’m driving home freaked out because I have this huge disgusting tarantula sitting in my car. I’m thinking how I will explain this to my parents, and hope they won’t freak out and yell at me. When I got home, my dad was home, and I decided to show him first. He got freaked out so bad! He didn’t want that box near him either. My mom on the other hand, who I thought would be scared the yell out, was completely relaxed about it. I wanted to mess with my mom, so I told her, “Oh my god mom, there is a giant tarantula on our kitchen wall!” My mom responded back, “Really? Where show me.” When I did show her, she was like oh it’s in the box, that’s fine.
Anyway, as hard as it to believe, I had a tarantula for a pet in my house for about week until I took her back to the Scales & Tails shop. Also, most importantly I had an awesome speech in class, and of course got an A plus!
