sPiDeRs

One of the piano books that Mrs. Witzel required for her beginners included a two- fingered version of the Napolentana Tarantella. All my piano books had pictures at the top of each page. However, that particular page was my favorite. There was an enchanting lady and her mandolin, dancing with a spider across the top of the treble cleft.

It captivated my 6-year-old mind. I sat quietly for long periods of time, my imagination running rampant. I was her, innocent and beautiful, plucking on my golden mandolin. From out of nowhere, the wicked arachnid would jump. He would raise his front legs, glare at me with his five eyes and drip poison from his fangs.

My trance, however, would soon be rudely interrupted by my mom's voice from the kitchen telling me to "get practicing."

In retrospect, I wonder how much of my irrational fear of spiders can be attributed to some bored artist's concept of an old Italian folk song?

Just this week I turned my chair at work to see speed racer bearing down on me from my left. I screamed and the little dasher actually changed directions and headed towards one of my co-workers desk.

"Kill him!" I screached.

My hubby would have rushed in and stomped the intruder in an instance. This guy took the time to squish him gently so as not to grind him into the carpet. There it stayed with its legs crumbled with just a slight wiggle left.

Last Wednesday our church home group joined us in the family room where the fireplace was cozy and inviting. Apparently, another humongous creature thought it was inviting, too. It dropped from the ceiling and landed on the coffee table with such magnitude that we all heard it thunk.

"Kill it!" I screached.

The hubby jumped up in his usual Mighty Mouse Manner and cried, "Here I am to Save the Day." Truly, he really only asked, "Where did it go?

"Under the magazine," Glenda pointed nervously.

He took a swat at the magazine that acted like a pea shooter and sent that spider flying through the air straight for her. After more screaming, because I was seated to her right, the hubby and Mike were commanded to pick up the chair for a seek and destroy mission. (Accomplished.) I think valium was meant for times like these.

My Christmas present this year from the hubby was a spider catcher. The one time I used it I had much difficulty coaxing the little beast to enter the trap. Then when I tried to release it outside it flung the spider backwards and grazed my shoulder on the way by. Heart attack.

My worst spider moment ever was one night that I chose to stay up late at my computer. The hubby told me he was extremely tired so please do not make noise and wake him when I followed him to bed.

That promise was on my mind as I sat in the opposite end of the darkened house with only the light from my computer casting shadows.

Did a movement catch my eye? Was there something in the room with me?

My heart began beating the Napolentana Tarantella in my ear as I slowly turned my head. There, just inches from my nose, hung a spider silhouette from the arch above my computer desk.

My mouth opened for the S.C.R.E.A.M, but the head momentarily remembered the promise.

Instead, a great sucking gasp from my wide open mouth began vacuuming the dangler in. I could feel it tickling my lips as my mind fought to control the diaphragm that was pulling on my lungs.

Finally, the air flow reversed, and I could see him swinging away -- for a nano second.

From somewhere deep within me the power came. It must have been my memory of the mandolin, and the beautiful lady who outmaneuvered the ugly tarantula with her delicate strumming, and her mesmerizing music.

A streaming rush of air flowed out of me. The spider sailed far enough away that I had time to push my chair and roll away from its return path.

I do not know how long it danced there at the top of the open computer page, because I ran quietly down the hall, shut the bedroom door, and crawled into bed.

I didn't wake him.










Spider compliments of Lisa Conrad, available at SPIDERS.