Arachnophobic Hubby

derived from wikipedia, arachnophobia or arachnephobia (from the Greek: ἀράχνη, aráchnē, "spider" and φόβος, phóbos, "fear") is a specific phobia, the irrational fear of spiders

ever since we started going out, i was told nature activities is a big no-no... initially, i thought it was only his non interest in outdoor activities... then i found out his biggest fear are those 8 legged arachnids, aside from height that is...

at first, it was like OH NO! my favorite and on the to do list activities, and i cant do them anymore... my theme park-height-influenced games, wall climbing, jungle trekking, hiking, paintball, sky trekking, etc... the only consolation i had to myself was, at least i'm still able to do go-karting, atv rides or any vehicle related activities...

anyway, fast forward to now... i'm slowly ticking off my to do list... either with the company of my cuckoo colleagues... wall climbing, paintball, ice skating: these are the things i've done with them... sky trekking will be next pretty soon... and now, he is slowly adapting himself to frequenting parks and gardens with me... hopefully, jungle trekking soon??? **hint hint**

speaking of gardens, we just got back from colmar tropicale yesterday... sadly, the french themed village isnt as sparkling as it used to be... thereafter, we took a walk at the japanese garden... we were doing fine, or more like i was doing pretty well and him slightly breathless... what from the couple hundreds meter walk uphill from the car park to the garden entrance...

as we were almost done taking a round trip of the garden, i pulled him into a flight of stairs down a small botanical garden... couple of steps down, standing next to a japanese restaurant, he stopped... not knowing what he was looking at, i stared at the direction he was looking at... and there it was, i saw a humongous spider probably the size of my palm... i squeezed his hands thinking he might need some assurance it's ok to go forward... what i didnt know was he didnt notice it... so, when he felt his hands squeezed, he looked up and found himself staring into the spider...

his first reaction was to throw my hands away, turn around, take a few steps headed to the entrance, and then fill the air with a whole string of curses and foul languages hurled at me... took a while and more threats from his lips to calm him down... he then proceeded to crush my hands, put me in between of the spider and him, told me in his exact words:

"you'll stand next to me, near the spider and if it falls on you, I DONT CARE!!!"

 and sped away from the spider...

took a lot of strength to pull away from his still twitching body to snap a few shots of the spider... all the way through the botanical garden, he was crushing my fingers anticipating for more arachnids... you should have seen my fingers... they were red from all the grabbing and squeezing...

unfortunately, on the way back to the entrance, i saw a tiny bug... not sure why, i stopped to stare at it... thinking it was another spider, he panicked and decided bone crush my fingers again... yet again, i wrongly thought he saw another spider... looking around, searching high and low... i did see a huge line of spider web (although he really didn’t see anything until I did)... tracing it to the source, there it was yet another humongous spider... turning his head away, he stubbornly decided to defy my hands and look at the direction of my view... this time, he had a panic attack... i took a couple of photos of it, which he refused to even look at... he pulled me to the entrance and speed walked to the car while hyperventilating all at the same time...

and now, he's thinking about going for sky trek with me... i wonder what he's gonna do this time...