It’s isn’t unusual for people to collect things. Collecting is an ordinary activity for people. While it’s true some people take it a step too far. That’s hoarding and I am by no means a hoarder. I’m a collector I pick and choose what I collect. It is not an obsession. I swear to god.
Yes, it’s true that I have been collecting all my life since I was a young girl. I grew up in the fifties and superheroes were popular with kids. I didn’t have any money but I wanted to be able to buy comic books just like all the other kids my age. My favorites were Casper the Ghost, Superman and Wonder Woman, and Archie.
Mutter Museum skull collection
So I would collect soda bottles from my neighbors or on the Main Street downtown from the trashcans. I would take them to the little store on the corner down the street from my house. And then I would turn them in and get money for them. Then I would walk to the News Stand a store that sold newspapers, magazines, and comic books. It was right next to Tony’s the shoe repairman’s shop. Tony was friends with me and I would always stop by and say hello when I went downtown. I kept the comics for years until my father decided they weren’t worth keeping and threw them out while I was at school one day.
I started writing to movie stars and television actors and asking for photographs with their signatures on them. I used to hide these so that no one would throw them out. I have to admit I got a little paranoid about it. I hid my precious collections in places where no one, especially my father would find them. For instance between my mattress and box spring, and in my underwear drawer.
As the years went by I became more particular about the things I collected. I didn’t just collect memorabilia anymore. I kept things that had emotional meaning to me. Like a picture of me with two of my best friends from grade school when we went to the New York Worlds Fair in 1965. You could see the Unisphere in the background.
When I was about nine or ten years old I started visiting the town library and I was simply amazed by the sheer number and variety of books that were available to borrow. And it didn’t cost anything. I just had to fill out an application with my name and address. And I could take out any of the children’s books. It wasn’t a big library. It only had two rooms. The children’s library was in the back. By the time I was about thirteen I had read all the books in the children’s library and the librarians decided I could start reading the adult books. I was immediately attracted to the Mystery Books. I spent almost all my free time reading.
My love of reading initiated my desire to start collecting books on subjects that interested me. It ignited a desire to learn. Reading became a means to escape from the unpleasant things in my life. I became a collector of knowledge starting with animals and ending with curiosity about the stars and the universe.
It wasn’t long before my book collection was larger than the library of my childhood. I had to buy a bigger house with a room that was large and all the walls were lined with bookshelves.
I spent all my free time going to estate sales and book sales. I met a lot of interesting people at these sales. Often I would see the same people repeatedly. We often had discussions about all the different places that we frequented to find our treasures. I have to admit I was somewhat taken aback by the crazy things that some of them collected.
There was one woman that only collected Cook books, an elderly man that only collected fountain pens. A middle-aged man that collected colored pencils, but only used colored pencils not new ones. He said pencils that had been used still held the thoughts and talents of the previous owner’s within them. The most unusual collector traveled the world collecting the stickers from bunches of bananas that people bought at the food store. I couldn’t imagine why. He told me his followers sent him banana stickers from all over the world. I could not comprehend what kind of people would follow someone that collected banana stickers.
It really staggered my mind how people spent their time and money on anything as useless as banana sticker, or even one poor soul that collected chap sticks. He assured me that they were in pristine condition, never used. He had 6,000 of them and he insisted that they were all different. How is that even possible?
The years passed by quickly and at long last my library shelves were filled and I had to start stacking them on the floor. Soon my floor was covered with books. And I had to make a pathway to my bed. One morning I woke up with a start and I had what I can only explain as Divine Inspiration. I would start collecting the subjects of my books, and not just the books. I spent the next month perusing all my books and trying to decide what I should start collecting.
My latest book was about spiders. Well not so much spiders themselves but arachnophobia. The fear of spiders. I was trying to overcome my phobias at the time. And my greatest fear was spiders. It was a childhood fear that I was never able to overcome. But I decided in that moment on that morning that I was going to overcome my fear of spiders by surrounding myself with them. Well, I don’t mean everywhere just on the third floor of my house. It was a large area and up until now the only thing I collected up there was dust.
I found a place called INVERTS. They promised that they had the absolute best inverts for sale in the WORLD. That you could find spiders, tarantulas, moon crabs, centipedes, millipedes and scorpions. I drove three hours to their establishment. I was there before they opened. The owner finally arrived and was surprised to see someone in his parking area. It turned out that they did most of their business online.
All the same, he asked me to wait a few minutes and then he would open up his shop and I could spend as long as I wanted to look to my heart’s content.
I spent five hours studying all the creatures. And slowly I developed a fixation about them. The sheer number of different and unusual species. The variation in shapes colors and size. I decided that I had to have not one, not two but every species eventually.
I began my collection with arachnids. They are an arthropod group that includes spiders, daddy longlegs, scorpions, mites, and ticks. I decided to start with the Poecilotheria metallica. It is known to be one of the worlds most colorful and beautiful spiders. It was so beautiful I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. It look like it was made of sapphire. The owner of the store told me it was from India. He also mentioned that it would grow to be about eight inches. I fell in love with her the moment I saw her. She had an egg sac and the owner said he would sell that too if I wanted it. But I had to be aware that there could be a thousand spiderlings (babies)He pull a pad of paper out of his pocket and wrote a large sum of money on it.
I stared at the figure for five minutes and then I said, “yes, I’ll take her.” And that my friends was the beginning of a short but intense love affair. I purchased a habitat and supplies for her.
“Are you certain that you want to take the egg sac? The number of spiderlings is quite impressive and difficult for an inexperienced collector to care for. I suggest you take one of the males. They don’t grow as large and you won’t have the additional responsibility of the spiderlings. If you want I can keep the female until the spiderlings are born and then you can take her and the spiderlings can survive independently?
“No, I’m sure I am capable of taking care of a spider and it’s offspring. I’ve been preparing for this kind of collection my whole life. If you would just gather everything that I will need right now to care for them including the crickets or any other food you feel that they need?”
And that my friends was the beginning and the end of my days of collecting. As soon as I arrived at home I brought my beautiful Sapphire female and egg sac to their home on the third floor. I spent the entire day setting up their habitat and making sure the temperature on the third floor of my house was optimal for them. I place the female in her tank. It was quite large. I wanted her to feel at home and not confined. I placed a small tree trunk in there for her to nest in. And she settled in. I couldn’t stop watching her. Even though she wasn’t moving around that much.
The owner of the store told me it took about eight months for the spiderlings to emerge so I expected them in the next week or so. I had to go out one afternoon to have my car tuned up because it was due for inspection the following week so I was out for several hours. I had overslept that morning and I was in a rush and apparently I left the cover of Peacock’s aquarium uncovered. That’s what I call her Peacock.
I had to wait in a long line at the car inspection station so I was delayed even longer. When I arrived home I headed up to the third floor to check on Peacock. I was so excited about the coming of the spiderlings. I was out of breath from running up the steps two at a time and I turned on the light and ran over to Peacock’s habitat. She was there but her egg sac wasn’t. I noticed several tiny spiders within the habitat. But where were the others? And that is when I realized that the cover was off. I yelled, “oh no the spiderlings got out.” I panicked, I stood there immobilized. I didn’t know what to do. I decided to call up the pet store where I purchased Peacock and ask him what to do.
“Hello, hello I have a problem. I’m the person that bought the Peacock Spider. Her spiderlings got out they are all over the place what can I do?”
“How did they get out?”
“I forgot to put the cover back on the habitat. And then I went out and now they are everywhere. What can I do?”
“That is unfortunate. This is why I advised you to just take the Peacock and not the egg sac. There could be a thousand babies. The easiest thing to do is to get your vacuum and suck them up. You have to be thorough if you miss even a few you will soon be overrun. Another solution is spray them with bleach and water, or essential oils and water, or pour boiling water on them. Or using a fly swatter and put them in a plastic bag.”
“Oh my that just sounds heartless, I don’t know if I can do it. I’ve been waiting so long to see them.”
“Well, the only other suggestion I have is to open all the windows up and some of them will go out the window and then at least they will have some chance at survival. If you leave them unfettered they will eventually mature and you can capture them because they will be large enough to catch. But if you don’t capture all of them they will start reproducing. And then you will have a monumental problem and your whole house will have to be fumigated. Good luck. Let me know how it all turns out.”
And then he hung up the phone without another word. I decided to use the open window method. And I blocked all the vents on the third floor and covered door jam so they couldn’t get out into the rest of the house. This was all because of my carelessness. I shouldn’t have gotten the spider sac that was a mistake. What was I thinking? I went downstairs and drank six cups of coffee. I was really wired. I decided to go out to dinner and a movie and then come back and see what was what?
When I got home from the movie I didn’t think my choice of moves was stellar either. I watched The Darkest Hour. A movie about an alien invasion that did not end well. I stopped at a bar on the way home and had a beer and a shot. Between the six cups of coffee and the beer and a shot, I was both wired and tipsy.
I drove slowly home afraid I would have a car accident. Two block from my house I got pulled over by a local cop and he insisted on doing a breathalyzer because I was driving too slowly. And then I told him I only had a shot and a beer and six cups of coffee. I wanted to confess to him about the invasion of thousands of spiderlings. But I thought if I did he would really think I went off the deep end. And he would cart me off to jail for sure.
He let me off with a warning and I continued on my way home. This had to be one of the worse days of my life up ’til now. I decided that when I got home I would have just grit my teeth and just vacuum the hell out of my third floor and pray that none of the spiderlings managed to get down to the first or second floor.
I dragged the vacuum upstairs and spent the next two hours vacuuming the floor over and over and then I took off the vacuum bag and put it into two plastic bags and took it out to the trashcan and dropped into and secured the lid on as tightly as possible. I guess time would tell. I went back to the third floor and wiped down the windowsills and closed the windows. What a day. I looked into the habitat and Peacock was busy with her remaining babies. I fed her and turned out all the lights. I was tuckered out. I went downstairs and took a hot shower and fell into bed and didn’t wake up until 9 AM the next morning.
I laid in bed and thought about all that had transpired. It was clear that perhaps collecting live creatures was not for me. So, I decided to take Peacock and her remaining offspring back from whence she came. I would only collect inanimate objects in the future. And then I remembered my childhood fascination with weapons especially knives, guns, weapons and cannons.
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