Why Cars Are the Worst Possible Place for a Spider

Trapped, Moving, Nowhere to Put It

Find a spider at home and you have options: a cup and a card, an open window, a broom, a very patient cat. Find one in a car and every option disappears. The doors are closed, the space is the size of one person's arms, and the car is moving. That combination is why the spider in car scenario outscreams every other bug encounter on the internet.

The panic is not really about the spider. It is about the loss of control, and a car is one of the few places where control feels like it can be lost all at once. The driver has to keep the wheel steady while the brain is busy deciding whether the bug is a threat. So the whole video plays out as a negotiation between two voices: the hands that keep driving, and the person who wants to pull over, scream, and possibly throw something.

Three Stages You Will Recognize

• Denial: the "What are you laughing at?" stage, where the passenger pretends the spider is not there.
• Alarm: the "There's a spider in the car" stage, where everyone agrees a spider is in the car.
• Flight-or-crash: the vomit-and-swerve stage, where the small bug is suddenly bigger than the road ahead.

Our game runs you through those same three stages. How fast you can tap the spider decides which stage you spend most of your run in.