Girls are afraid of spiders. Even though spiders are pretty much harmless, girls tend to go “BWAHAHAHAHA” when there’s a spider.

My little sister has an excuse though, and that excuse is me.

You see, I’m an insensitive bastard. I ENJOY pissing people off. Like when I go to the store and buy cake and won’t give any to Jujubees. Or when I ask her if she wants some cake and then her eyes light up like a puppy when you drop a meatball on the floor but then it all turns to tears when I tell her to get off her ass and bake some.

I don’t do THAT with Piabear…. but I did torment her with a toy spider…

It was frikkin gross. All green with a few extra legs and it actually had pincer/claw like things at the end of some of them. Red beady eyes. And it held a parachute as a sort of ultimate prize for any child… well, any boy who wanted to drop a parachuting spider on his little sister and didn’t necessarily WANT to hurt her. Of course the chinamen that made this monstrosity were corny enough to make the parachute a “web” by painting a cheesy web over clear polyurethane.

This was back in the 1980’s, when toys were amazing and cheepo toys from were available not only in Chinatown but in local Mom & Pop shops. I remember getting burlap bags filled with snakes and bugs and spiders and goopy things. They were all probably from the Oriental Trading catalog where all good toys came from.

Anyway, I really don’t know what demon possessed my parents to buy this for me because anyone would know that I’d torment Pia with it. But they did. And I did. and it was fun.

Sadly though, I had to retire the spider. Well, that’s not entirely true. My dad did it for me one saturday night when I was on a gurilla mission involving opening Pia’s bedroom door and throwing the spider into her My Little Pony/ Rainbow Bright crossover teaparty, running back into my bedroom and hiding in a fort made up of a table and blanket while I had my space Legos all set up so I could deny any involvement with “Operation: Spider”.

This would send her screaming and hurling the spider back at me and then crying back into her room. Where she’d set up her My Little Ponies and her Rainbow Bright toys and I’d be forced to repeat my actions….

Until my dad got pissed off.

He grabbed the spider out of my hands right before I could throw it, took a pocket knife and cut it right in half and threw it out the second floor window.

This was an injustice that I couldn’t comprehend at the tender age of 7. What about the spider’s family? Who’d take care of his good wife, the boglin?

So I started to weave webs made out of fishing line. I was pretty good too. I’d even hang GI Joes from it and have He-Man figures help stand guard…. And so one night I was tangled up in the web and I called for Pia to come get me and I told her “The spider’s mad at me for letting him die! Now his ghost’s gonna eat my insides! AND IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!!!”

Which sent her screaming…. and it hasn’t ended 20 years later.