Thursday, November 02, 2006

ENLIGHTENMENT

This is the most recent story to come to the forefont, relative to the activities of my children when they were teenagers, living at home. I am absolutely amazed sometimes when I hear what was going on right under my nose, and I never knew.

The story to which I was treated has to do with spiders. It seems my daughter had quite an aversion to them, and despite our best efforts, a variety of spiders in various shapes, appeared from time to time in the bathroom she shared with her younger brother. The spiders came in small to large sizes, with thick furry to filament thin legs, some short, some long, some even with very, very long appendages.

It seems on those occasions of their appearance, never more than one at a time, when she would be up early, go into the bathroom, and find one of the creatures in the corner of her shower, she was thwarted from performing any additional personal care until the spider was made aware he/she did not belong there.

Now, there was no way my daughter was going to explain the situation to the spider. Her solution, she reported, was to awaken her brother to come to the rescue. According to her, he grumbled, groused, and groaned, but dutifully crawled out of bed in his sleep sweats, had the necessary interaction with the spider, which ultimately vacated its spot in the corner of the shower, either willingly, or unwillingly. I prefer not to think about the disposition of the unwilling.

As to where they came from, why they kept coming periodically, I can only speculate about an explanation. I think, there must have been some sort of spider communication network. I'm sure the word spread among the arachnoids about the interesting experience they would have if they could somehow manage to get into our house, but more specifically into that one particular bathroom. I rather imagine the event was billed as an extreme sport, only for spiders. One of those real-life once-in-a-lifetime exciting, dangerous, risky-to-the-point of being life-threatening, experiences that could change your life forever. What self-respecting spider would pass up an opportunity like that? None of which I know. Well, come to think of it, I don't really know too many.

I can just picture those spiders lined up outside, wherever that spot was that they managed to come through into the house. I wonder if an entrepreneur spider sold admission tickets, if you could buy them in advance, make reservations, receive all the perks that make any special event an attraction? Did this event have equal appeal to both males and females, or was this just a macho-type activity? I think it's unlikely that I will ever have the answers to those questions.

I do have one answer though. After his sister, who had to leave for work at a really early A.M. hour, had left the house, I think it was those spider mornings when my son did not easily "rise and shine," as the saying goes. On those mornings he would hardly open his eyes, instead clinging to his bed as though he could not bear to be parted from it, all the while protesting about his need for sleep.

11 comments:

  1. I love it! I, personally, like spiders and tend to carefully remove them from places where they might get hurt, valuing them for their skill in hunting bugs, but I can appreciate that others don't like them.

    What a kind son you have.

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  2. Those spiders must be kin to the spiders that love our bathrooms. There is, perhaps fortunately, an endless supply of the critters.
    Cop Car

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  3. Great story. I let them live in my bathroom unless they get aggressive. The biggest spiders in a bathroom that I have come across were daddy-long-legs in a vacation cabin we rented for a couple of nights in Ramsay Canyon, Arizona. They were huge.I didn't count how many but a lot. Because it's a kind of nature preserve, I couldn't bring myself to kill one (besides who knows if the others would have sought revenge); so I did what was required in there as fast as possible and never showered... Who knows what they'd have thought of that. I figurd it was their place and I was the visitor.

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  4. I confess to hating spiders with a passion. Well, maybe not hate.....scared to death of them is probably more like it.

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  5. Yeah, Granny, I like spiders, too, but always wonder how they get in the house in the first place.

    Cop Car, another thing we have common ... spiders in our bathrooms! Amazing what brings people together.

    Rain, I must say that was extremely generous of you to have assumed the visitor status in your vacation cabin, deferring to the more permanent spider residents -- speaks volumes about your character -- but I don't know what it's saying. *grin*

    Ah, Kenju, yes, I, too, had an aversion to spiders for many years, but mellowed with age when I thought about all the good they did. Now,mostly, I try to capture them first to return to the outdoors.

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  6. Good story, joared. I'm not a spider fan and once had a shower stall go-round with a large party of them in my hotel room in the Virgin Islands. There were some large and fuzzies I wasn't much fond of too, in Texas.

    There's a reason I like northern climes - the icky bug population (insect and arachnoid)is much lower and more benign.

    I'm such a girly girl about these things.

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  7. I'm afraid I'm right there with Ronni on this one....girly girl or not. I don't mean the little critters any harm necessarily; but if I meet an 8-legger face to face on my turf....I'm betting I win....most of the time.

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  8. Okay, Ronni and Joy, sounds like a clear case of discrimination to me. You like lady bugs??? *smile*

    About those big fuzzies in Texas ... I lived for a time in an area in another state where once a year they migrated. You could go out on a moonlit night and the ground would be covered with them. They would sometimes move threateningly toward you, trying to put up a front of bravado. I was told they were relatively harmless, but I never argued with them, I must admit.

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  9. This is the first time I've been able to click on your name and be taken to your blog!!! HOORAY! For a long time there was no blog...I'm so happy there is now!
    And about spiders...I am not in love with then but I do try to save them when I am able to and then put them outdoors, too!

    BTW: About putting pictures up on my blog....I remember I had another blog for about a month and I learned to put pictures up on that blog..but, only at the top!
    It took me quite a while to figure out the way to put them other places on my blog and it was an exciting day when that happened...BUT, I did not know how to do the photo thing for a few weeks...at the beginning...Take Heart...you will get it, I'm sure. Come to think of it, a "spider" picture would have been a great think for this post!

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  10. Just added you to my blogrool Joared...And I'm so happy you have joined our little 'band of bloggers'!! Congratulations, my dear!

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  11. Well, thanks "oldoldlady..." Glad to hear you care for the spiders, too.

    Thanks for your encouragement about taking pictures; also, for adding me to your "blogrool." Is that anything like a blogroll??? *grin* I'm sorry, I just have a weird sense of humor, and I've probably permanently alienated you now. As for me I never make tpyos!

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