I know to some people spiders are a real problem… well, not the spiders but the fear of spiders, and I can understand people being wary and cautious and even a bit nervous of spiders in countries where they are venomous… but I do think some people are a bit wimpy about them. OK I’m not very keen on the very big ones, but I just watch where they are and stay away! My dad who was a country-boy at heart and certainly not afraid of them was once bitten on his thumb by a very big one… it drew blood! It met an early death…
I had a friend with a real phobia about spiders… and other things too; one night at about 1:30, she walked a mile to my flat to ask my and my flat-mate to come and get a spider out of her bath… she didn’t expect us to do it there and then but begged a bed for the night until we could do it the next day.
There was an article on the BBC web-site about a woman who dialled the emergency services, 999 to ask for help with a spider… The article gave some other non-emergency call-outs:
- an elderly woman who had thrown water at fighting dogs, forgetting her dentures were in the glass
- a person had dropped a mobile phone down the toilet.
- a caller asked for help with a spider on a pillow
- an au pair rang about getting help to close a window
- a woman called about a squirrel in her kitchen
- a man wanted help changing a tyre
- a woman rang after a bat flew in her kitchen
- a shoe was stuck on a garage roof
- a woman feared a fox in her garden might bite her because it had “an odd look on its face”.
Have people no sense? Apparently not! last year a Welsh fire-brigade reported:
- a request for prescribed medication
- reports of a faulty phone line
- a lost dog
- a son playing on a games console and refusing to go to bed
- bins being left outside a property
- a phone number for a local authority
- a woman bitten on the finger by a hamster
- a minor scratch from her cat
- a man who wanted someone to rub ointment on his back
Lois Elsden 