Not long ago, I wrote Part I of this topic. It became a discussion of things I detest with less than two legs. Today, as promised, I write the portion that admits my screaming fear of things with more than two legs.
Now I am fully aware that things with more than two legs will include little furry things like puppies and kitties, and horses and cows and such, but I will leave the understanding to you to realize that I really mean things with more than four legs. More than two legs is simpler to say and easier for you to get my meaning. But...... I digress!
For some reason, I have an image burned intro my childhood memory. It would have been before I was 10 yrs old, because it took place at the house we lived in until I was nine. It may have been real; it may have been a dream. If it was a dream, it doesn't matter because it was SO real, it gives me the shudders even today.
We were playing in the yard, and I felt an itch on my upper right thigh. I pulled up the leg of my shorts to scratch it and there was a spider large enough that it covered most of the top of my thigh - easily as big as my hand. I screamed like a less-than-10-yr-old-girl and knocked it off. The vivid picture I have of it is that it was a big grey wolf spider, but it might just as well have been an octopus. *insert large shudder here*
My childhood memories do NOT include bugs. I don't mean mosquitos or gnats or flies. I mean roaches - big black or brown creepy crawlies that wait to crawl across your table and across your plate or your fork or your toothbrush or whatever. *shudder* My mother kept an immaculately clean home. At least clean enough we never had bugs. No spiders, either. I don't remember ever having to deal with roaches until going to "the pool."
For several years, around my early teens, we were members of a neighborhood pool named "Community Swim Club." It was members only to help pay for the upkeep. A nice large pool with quite a large number of families as members. I became best friends with a guy I met there named Butch Stewart. We were "best buds" and hung out for the entire summers for several years. Butch was a VERY slow-talking good ol' boy whose favorite saying was, "Shoot-yessiree-bobtail!" Say it aloud slowly with a Southern drawl. That was Butch. Another favorite thing of Butch's was to go into the boys locker room and select the largest, blackest roach he could find with which to chase the girls. And they were aplenty! Roaches, mostly - girls, too. Butch would find the roach of choice, pick it up, hold it up to show me its wriggling legs and antennae, and giggle with the anticipation of what havoc it was about to bring to the entire female population at the pool.
I was terrified! It took every fiber of my being not to let him see what he was doing to me with that thing!
The best thing about Butch was his sister, Susan. She was our same age, about 14, and was the things little boys' dreams were made of. That is, she would have been if little boys knew what dreams they should have been having then. She was on the swim team and, as one would imagine, looked like a swimming star! But.... I digress! (Twice in the same posting - a record!)
Over the years, among other places like the patio, etc, I've had a roach crawl across my foot in bed, crawl across my hair in bed, and crawl across the pillow in bed. See a pattern here? I HATE things that crawl around the bed. *another shudder*
About two days after writing "less than two legs," I awoke about 2:10 in the morning. For some reason, I thought I heard a noise. I decided to investigate and moved from room to room finding, of course, nothing. Since I was next to the bathroom, I decided to avoid getting up later by taking care of things then. Generally, there is no reason to turn on the light in your home, but I did. It was a damn good thing I did! Right before taking a seat, I noticed the tell-tale wave of some 4' antennae - ON THE TOILET SEAT!!!! He was as big as a reindeer and looking to scare the be-jeebers out of some guy who happened into his fiefdom. A fast wave of the seat and he was swimming. I gave him a moment to flounder about, triumphantly yelled, "Oh HELL no!", and then flushed him like the piece of crap he was!! *BIG heebie-jeebies*
My wife is my hero. She can handle them better than I. I admit it. I will take care of them when I see them, but I sure don't like it.
Being a closet girly-man, and not found out, is a full-time job. Just don't tell anyone.
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