The Basement of Which I Am Sorely Afraid

Generally speaking, I have found that basements are referred to as cellars in Britain.  I think that's misleading.  When I think of a cellar, I think of wine.  There is no wine in the deep regions of my house, nor is there a beverage/edible to be found.  So I'm sticking with the term basement.

My basement, while short on food storage, is not lacking in an abundance of spiders.

I. Hate. Spiders.  With a venemous (no pun intended) passion.  There's a whole colony of them mere steps from my kitchen.  Some are alive, and some are dead.  I don't care to get close enough to determine into which category each individual belongs.

As the washer and dryer are located in this pit of despair, I am sporadically compelled to descend to the underworld against my will -- a chore I originally avoided for as long as possible.  It gives me the shivers every time.

Each laundry session begins as I hesitantly open the gateway to hell, peer around for any spiders lurking directly in my path and then scamper down as fast as my short little legs will carry me.

Some might find such viligance to be unnecessary.  Yet some are not desperately trying to forget the dreaded day in which an arachnid saw fit to crawl up a certain person's shoe.  (My shoe, in case you were confused.) That recollection haunts me still....

Spiders aside, I am not keen on this level of inferno.  In fact, it looks to me like the kind of place in which a serial killer might conceal the remnants of his victims.  Part of me (the Catherine Morland part) expected to find an oversize freezer that just wouldn't seem to open down there. 

Entering Satan's Abode

The antonym of cozy

The white circles indicate eight-legged trespassers

No, no and no thank you

I lied -- there is a freezer

Hand on heart, I had completely forgotten about the ominous presence of a chilling device.  Perhaps I need to check its contents for severed limbs after all.