Arachnophobia.

Growing up, I always lived in the suburbs. The biggest cities were only miles away, and there was always plenty to do nearby. In 2011, my husband and I purchased our first home, which, I suppose is within a small suburb, but surrounding us is nothing but fields and vast, empty space. The population in our little town is not much over 1,000. We're used to seeing field mice, snakes, racoons, opossums, and some really weird looking bugs.

And really big spiders.

Okay, so they're not as big as some of the bugs that people see in, say, Florida, but for an Ohioan, these suckers are pretty darn huge. Since we've moved here, though, I've simply had to tolerate them. Being that the mosquito population out here often gets pretty bad, I don't mind them so much, but when they get in my house, that's when I panic.

Here is an example of how big I'm talking:

If you can't tell, this bad boy is in a mason jar. He was bigger than a half-dollar, considering leg span. I believe it's some type of wolf spider, although I can't say for sure, and his behavior led me to believe otherwise. Usually, wolf spiders are incredibly fast and very scared of humans. When I approached this big guy, he didn't move at all. Even when I put the jar over him, he didn't try to scurry away. He just sat there.

I closed the lid and sat him on the counter so that I could show my husband when he came home from work. The longer he and I sat there, staring at one another, I started to feel sympathy for the poor little (big) guy. He kept rubbing his two front legs on the side of the glass, almost as if he was begging me to release him (I guess I became the "spider whisperer" that night).

Well, my empathic nature won over my fear of spiders that night, because I felt so bad for the spider that I walked him out to the corner of my yard and released him.

I don't know where he went after that, but at the risk of sounding rude, I hope he doesn't come back this year.