Arachnophobia, how you have damaged me.
I've been scared of spiders for as long as I can remember, not as bad these days as it was halfway through my teenages but they still get to me quite badly.
I remember this one time in my childhood, I might have been 8 or 9 years old.
Me and some friends from school were heading home to one of us.
Outside the house stood a fairly small tree, maybe two meters tall, from which a spider was hanging in the best horror movie-pose, rotating slightly with all eight legs spread out.
I realize now that it must not have been much bigger than my hand is now, but back then it was humongous! The contrast to the tiny tree probably didn't help much to convey its actual size either.
I might add that I live in Sweden, not exactly a country well known for its abundance of large spiders, turns out the spider we saw was indeed of the largest species indigenous to Sweden, called "kärrspindel" (do a google image search if you wish, I'd link you a picture but I fear undertaking this would lead to me having to immediately shut off my monitor and do a hard reboot to banish the evil)

I insisted on standing twice as far away from it as we took turns throwing rocks at it, I told them it was because it would be too easy to hit it from where they were standing.
(NekomimiNinja now with a couple percent more posting, Wed 16 Apr 2008, 9:28, Reply)