“EEK!” a little voice called in surprise from the bathroom.
I looked up from my dolls and waddled on my short three-year old legs to the source of the noise.
My five-year-old twin brothers were bent over, staring intently at the tiled floor.
“Wow. Eets big.” One said.
“Eets female.” said the other.
“Lemme see.” I said, pushing my way between them.
I let out a bloodcurdling scream and immediately began to cry. On the floor lay a giant, hairy, eight-legged monster. It was enormous, bigger than my hand. Long creeping legs stretched out from the body. It lay still as if preparing to pounce, sending chills down my spine and fear to my core.
“It’s dis big!” I would say, putting both of my tiny hands together to demonstrate its enormous size.

“The spider was huge!” I told a group of friends at my twelfth birthday party, holding out both of my hands. The spider had become a large tarantula, for years I had ignored the proportion of the spider to my tiny three-year-old body, and thus the spider grew with me.
Ignoring this, a friend entered the bathroom. My heart pounded, I was overwhelmed by an irrational fear that I would never see him again. I waited for a scream. It never came. Instead, I heard a flush. My friend emerged alive. Unharmed.
Months later, I entered the basement bathroom for the first time in almost a decade, waiting for a spider to attack.