Tony

Tony Gallichan is Mildly Perturbed by... Spiders


Ok. I have had enough!! More than enough!

The bloody things have no right to life.

They should be crushed, wiped out, destroyed, killed.

The problem is this. I hate spiders. (All Pertwee's fault of course) I don't know what it is about them, but they bring out the worst in me. I'm a 6-foot bloke for heaven's sake, they should hold no fear for me, but they do. Here's a few examples...

A friend once thought that it would be a laugh if he got the top off a tomato, hold it in his hand and thrust it under my nose with the side splitting line.." Here you go, Tone... spider!"

Oh how he laughed as he picked himself up off the floor and went to stop the flow of blood from his nose. I hadn't meant to hit him, I'm not a violent person by any stretch of the imagination, oh no. I haven't had a fight since primary school. But for a few seconds it was like I had blacked out, the next thing that I knew was he was on the other side of the room, on the floor.

Blind panic can do that.

More recently, I'm sitting in my recliner (ah, the decadence of the man), and I felt a tickle on my hand. Now, of course, to the arachnophobe this is the equivalent of the four-minute warning and being at ground zero all at once. ANY tickle on the skin is a possible heart attack inducing moment.

Sure enough, a spider had had the audacity to climb upon me. I flipped again. I flung the damned thing away and found myself repeatedly punching it shouting, "Die! Die! Die!" over and over.

A sheer primeval instinct it must be. Something from way back when Ugg the caveman saw a huge eight legs and decided that they had better learn how to bang the rocks together properly in as short a time as possible so they had a defence against this spawn of Satan.

|It's not right. Something has to be done.

And people actually protect the minging bastard things.

"Ooh no, Tony, don't kill it. Throw it outside."

An excellent solution to the problem with just two faults.

  • No way in hell am I going to get on my hands and knees, stare the beast in the eyes, get close to it and then piss around with a bit of card and a glass. Forget it.
  • Now, this may be hard for some eight-leg lovers to accept but, if you throw the spider out then might there not be the small possibility of the thing coming back in? And bringing its bigger, fiercer friends with it to sort out the miserable two legs that threw it out the window?

So. Death is the only option.

They know this, you see? That's why they prey on us. They have some kind of control over the spider lovers, I'm sure of it. I mean, come oooon!!! Isn't it obvious? Why else would any sane person tolerate the existence of those fucking things hmm?

Oh, you get the usual excuses of course.

"They are more scared of you than you are of them."

Bullshit!!!

They are not sitting, quaking in a corner, any form of rational behaviour vanished. Oh no. They are the ones still scuttling towards the human jelly. No, they are the ones laughing maniacally at the puny two legs.

They have training camps, you know. Oh yes. Spider training camps. The red-kneed tarantulas are the NCOs... they have the stripes, you see. There they get to learn how to judge a human's eyesight  so they can lurk just in the corner of your vision. There they learn just how to hang from ceilings over the human's head, almost ready to fall but somehow still hanging on. And that scuttling motion of their legs. That's not natural, you know. They have to be operated on and have several weeks of training.

Evil little fuckers.

They are one of the reasons that I'm grateful for my five cats. I know, as soon as Fox or the Bandit or one of the others starts to get very interested in a piece of wall or an area of carpet that THEY are here.

Of course, the mogs hardly ever actually eat the wretched thing. No, they have to play.

One day I am waiting for a cat to jump on me when I'm in bed, walk up to my face and I'll see a load of legs hanging out of the cat's mouth just before said mouth opens and down falls the spider.

Onto my face.

It's gonna happen.

Oh yes.

So, if you ever meet me, take pity on this gibbering, sobbing wreak of a man.

Cos one day it might be you. All it'll take will be just one shock. One little spider attack.

Then you will know FEAR.

 

Tony Gallichan has had many embarrassing moments. For example: getting pissed at Tavern and slagging Pertwee off to Barry Letts and Terrance Dicks. They were rather nice about it, all things considered.