This is the shadow of a toy plastic spider. We own two and they’ve been given me a fright quite regularly.
The spiders were included in a bag full of toys and books that we were given by a family who was leaving Tokyo. I’m not a fan of spiders, to put it lightly. Thus I didn’t show much excitement when we discovered the spiders in the bag. The kids obviously sensed my resentment and begged me to keep them. I thought about it and felt that, if the spiders show up in random and unexpected places within the house from time to time, it might help me to tackle my arachnophobia.
From then on, I regularly saw the shadow of one of these spiders from the corner of my eye and, I have to admit, after a while it bothered me less and less. Recently though, the kids found out that it’s great fun to sneak up on me and drop the spider inside my top or, alternatively, hide it in one of my shoes. That I cannot deal with so well. I decided to cut down the number of the spiders. Still some fun for the kids but a little less frequent frights for me.
katazukete 