things that skitter in the night
Admittedly, none of the creatures in my story actually skitter, but I like the word. Rana [
Frogs and Ravens] posted about
Creepy Crawlies, or "various invertebrates that have creeped me out over the course of my life." Boy, she sure has a list, from ants to earwigs to leeches. If you know me, you know this little fact: I hate spiders. I can deal with fleas, flies, mammoth horseflies, worms, moths, whatever. But not spiders...and I have
two damn good reasons...
One day, when I was little, maybe...eight? ten? (mom or dad, feel free to tell me how old I really was, because I'm guessing) I was with my mom in our basement. Now, this was a finished basement, in that it had wonderfully hideous orange patterned carpet and wood paneling, a orange laminate bar, and pool/pingpong/air hockey tables. We lived in the middle of the woods, and it was always damp, musty and had its fair share of bugs. One day this big ol' spider walks across the floor. Little spiders, I can handle. Really, I can. But as soon as they start getting squishy and what not, I leave it to someone else to squish. Anyway, I jumped up on the ping pong table and wouldn't come down until someone took care of it (note: I have no issues with mice. Go figure.) and that person was my mom. She smacked the hell out of it with her Dr. Scholl's...and a thousand baby spiders skittered across the basement floor. Mama spider was dead, but karma sent us a thousand little ones in her place.
But that's not all. We also had a swimming pool in the backyard, and it collected a lot of bugs. In fact, if there were visible bugs on the bottom, I wouldn't go in, such was my dislike of bugs. If there was a dead rodent in the skimmer (which happened frequently), no problem, just toss it in the woods. But bugs, not my favorite. One day, I was hanging on the rope that separated the 3' area from the "deep end", and a big ol' spider came trotting along the rope. My mom got up and smacked it. You think she'd have learned her lesson, but no....and a thousand baby spiders floated on top of the water, toward me.
I don't like spiders.
