Little Things

I’ve always found it a bit strange that the fairer sex, generally speaking, is afraid of mice.  Given the size advantage, females should be able to subdue any mouse.  Why then are women afraid of such diminutive creatures? I don’t have a good answer to this question, nor am I able to fully explain my fear of snakes and spiders.

I’m okay with any snake or spider that’s a respectable distance away from me.  Still, I walk with trepidation along pond banks or rock lined creeks or levees, as reptiles such as snakes, love to warm themselves in such places.  And, I would add, the early morning deer hunts that once took me deep into pre-dawn woods in mid-October carried the risk of me face-planting a spider in route to a deer stand location. Oh, the horror!

I can count on one hand the number of snakes I’ve seen on the grounds of my current home, but spiders are a different story.  And, just this year, I’ve remarked to family members as to the prevalence of cobwebs in nooks and crannies of our garage, around outside windows, and under the eaves of our house.  I sweep them down and they’re back in less than a week.  Thankfully, our pest control service keeps the inside of our house a relatively spider-free “safe zone.”

My wife was watching TV in our living room/den, last night, and it was not something I cared to hear or see, so I ventured to our guest house, intending to watch some early episodes of The Twilight Zone, via Netflix.

The porch area is not well lit, but I could see well enough to unlock the door.  No sooner had I stepped on the threshold, when I walked face first into a cobweb.  There may have been a spider in the web, I cannot say.  However, in the melee that followed, and it was a melee of flailing arms and hands about my face and head, I dislodged my glasses, knocking them onto the tiled entrance to the living room.

I can see without my glasses, just not very well.  Yet, I could see them lying on the floor in a twisted shape, much like person who just fell from a high precipice.  In that moment, I felt the agony of the Ralphie in A Christmas Story when he stepped on his glasses, breaking them.  I even had empathy for the bank teller in an episode of The Twilight Zone, who loved to read and was the sole survivor of an H-Bomb blast with access to all the books of the now demolished Public Library, who accidentally broke his glasses, and was left anguished and alone at the show’s end.

The clinic that keeps me in eyewear is closed today. I have attempted to straighten and bandage the frames of my glasses.  Presently, they are perched somewhat angly-gogling on the bridge of my nose with one earpiece resting higher than the other earpiece. A thin rubber band, think ponytail holder, keeps one lens in its proper place. None of this is pretty, but it works well enough for me to do most of the things I want to do.

Little animals frighten some people; little arachnids frighten others. Some of us respond to our fears rationally, while others of us may lean toward being irrational. Life, itself, is merely a compilation of little things and events that from a world view are insignificant, but on the personal level are experiences to be remembered, cried over, or laughed at.  I choose to laugh at this one.