 |
|||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
spiders When I was a kid, I tended to excel at many things past my age bracket (this has not been the case in my adult life) and so my parents always got me into things where I was basically over my head socially. I was a shy kid, kind of small for my age, and barely able to hold my own within my own age group in terms of popularity. I know they meant well, they wanted me to be challenged instead of bored, which makes sense. My parents are good people. Anyhow, they somehow got me into this summer horseback riding camp when I was like 8 or 9 for "gifted equestrians". I guess I must have passed some riding test or something, because all of a sudden I was in this camp with a bunch of 13-18 year old kids. The girls in my tent all knew each other from some fancy private school in Dallas, not to mention that I was a silly child to them. (I'll probably talk at some future point about other camps I went to where I was too young and knew no-one, but let me say here, if you ever send your kids to a camp, send them with a friend!) So, this camp turned out to be a total nightmare, the horses were old and barely able to trot, a step away from the glue factory. I was miserably alone and young. The worst part, however, was the living conditions. Within our huge tents were nests of Daddy-Long-Legged spiders, which are harmless (as the counselors cheerily explained), but totally huge and creepy! In my tent of like 15 girls, there were four nests, which we could see on the ceiling. We'd get there every night and see the spiders on the walls, ceilings, wood floors. We'd shake dozens of them out of our sleeping bags before going to bed at night, shake them off the lids of our suitcases (which we kept zipped shut to avoid having the spiders get in there) before getting our pajamas out for bed. In the morning, we'd shake out our riding boots and, literally dozens of these damn spiders would fall out. After I left that camp, I never rode horses again. But, I took with me the paranoia of "something-creepy-in-the-shoes", and for 22 years have always shaken my shoes (especially boots!) out upside-down before putting them on. I've never encountered a critter when doing so. About a year ago, I was late for work and went to put on a pair of boots. I didn't shake them out. I wasn't wearing socks. I felt this weird thing and freaked out, threw the boot against the wall, and out comes this itty-bitty lizard baby, less than an inch long (I live in the desert). I was practically dry-heaving (I HATE critters) and by the time I got to work, felt like I had been through hell! Told this story to my friend, Bill, at work, expecting some compassion, and he laughed, and said, "well, shit, YOU were scared? How do you think the lizard felt?" I laughed my ass off! Poor little baby lizard, seeing my looming toes about to crush it to death! That's my silly story and my first entry to my Diary. Miss These?
|
|||||
