Giant Spider Invades Earth

I don’t like bugs in my house.  I kill every one I see.  No mercy.  No remorse.  I don’t want them crawling around, eating our food, or biting us.   Outside, I don’t even step on an ant.  Live and let live.  Inside though, I am the “first responder” when the bug siren starts wailing.  I immediately rush to the kitchen for a weapon.  If we’re out of the Sunday paper I just grab a paper towel.  Well, not one paper towel.  I grab four or five.  I don’t want sticky yellow bug innards soaking through a thin little paper towel and getting on my fingers.  Yuk.  Also, if this invader is say, a really big spider or, god forbid, a big ugly potato bug, I don’t want to take the chance that my poor aim will enable this monster a chance to crawl up that one little towel to bite my hand, or jump onto my head.   I use 4 or 5 paper towels so he or she has further to go to launch an effective attack.  This gives me more time to drop them and run.  So I need a big wad.

People who study our food supply say that we inadvertently consume about 2 pounds of insects every year.  Insects are generally not very big so just imagine how many you’ve eaten.  I know you’re not eating all that many bugs on purpose.   I’m sure you are unaware of them crawling into your gaping mouth while you’re asleep.  You probably inhale quite a few every day on your walk too.  Insect eggs were probably in your cereal this morning.  It’s just the way it is.  Forget about it…………. if you can.

Of course, many people around the world eat them on purpose.  In fact, there are about 1400 varieties worldwide that people look to for that extra bit of protein.  They are not me though.  I’ll just stick to my anti-biotic infused fecal matter peppered good old pig belly and a couple of bird embryos… breakfast of champions.

A few days ago, while brushing my teeth, I saw a tiny reddish-orange flash out of the corner of my eye on the white tile next to the sink.  It was a spider.  This little spider was only about 1/16^th of an inch in diameter counting its’ legs, which were too tiny to really see.   I snuffed it with one fluid and deadly arm movement from the Kleenex box to the tile.  We’re talking black-belt tissue expertise here.  He never saw it coming.  Existence…over.

This death haunted me though over the next few days.  What harm did this little guy ever do to me?  How big a bite could he take?  His tiny jaws probably couldn’t puncture even the mucous membrane in my nose let alone the skin on my arm or finger.  If he could get his fangs into my skin, surely his poison gland didn’t hold enough toxins to raise even a small welt on my face.  Heck, his world could only consist of a few square inches.  Surely I could have spared him that amount of living space somewhere under my sink.  I shouldn’t have killed him.  It was cold-blooded murder.

This morning I saw his twin in the bathroom, or wife/mother/uncle, whatever.  He was running around the raised lip of a lotion bottle.  This tiny tiny reddish-orange being was going around and around.  And he was hauling ass.  I watched him for at least two minutes.  Around and around, where did he think he was going?  When would he discover he was on a road to nowhere?  Finally he stopped and seemed to look down, perhaps feeling confused and bewildered.  I watched him for a few more seconds, then turned and walked away.

© Steve Stewart and See Next Rock, 2013 

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http://www.thatsfit.com/2008/05/21/forget-the-burger-get-a-grasshopper-to-go/

Holding on for dear life in Pittsburgh

We traveled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania a few months ago to visit some old friends.  I wanted to see these friends, but was not particularly interested in seeing Pittsburgh.  I had formed ugly images of this city in my head:  owned and ruled in the recent past by steel and coke barons Carnegie and Frick; rogues getting rich under a grimy blackened sky; scrooges paying slave wages to workers who died tired, young, and hopeless.  I imagined an industrial wasteland inhabited by poorly educated, economically depressed, semi-literate, armed and dangerous Neanderthals. 

Why would anyone still live there after the steel industry went away?  Why would this god-forsaken place continue to have a National Football League team and why did their home field used to be called Three Rivers Stadium?  If this stadium was surrounded by three heavily polluted rivers, did Steelers fans worry about them catching on fire like the Cuyahoga River did in 1952 Ohio?  Did local insurance companies thereby deny life insurance policies to Pittsburgh Steelers season ticket holders? 

I’m exaggerating of course.  I just had this vision of a failed and boring industrial town.  A place not as bad as say, Detroit (another city I hadn’t visited), but bad enough that it would never make my bucket list…if I even had one. 

I was wrong.  Pittsburgh has done a makeover.  It has culture, curious shops, a charming “old town”, interesting architecture, beautiful gardens and parks, and renowned educational institutions.  The view from our friends’ home high on a cliff overlooking the city and the rivers was spectacular.  I saw fisherman on these rivers.  People seemed kind-hearted and friendly.  The food was surprisingly good.  I had one of the most delicious tacos I’ve ever eaten made by a street vendor in Old Town…and I’m a taco connoisseur from the West Coast where Mexican food is everywhere.  I didn’t expect this in Pennsylvania of all places.  It’s a beautiful state and Pittsburgh is a great town.

Pittsburghers are fanatic sports fans.  Big time. We were there during football season and it seemed as if everyone wore Pittsburgh Steelers colors and logos.  The craziness was appalling…but impressive.  I could live in Pittsburgh, if they had decent weather, palm trees…and the San Francisco 49ers.

I’m only talking about Pittsburgh though because I just finished a book written by a Pittsburgh native about growing up there.  The book is:  An American Childhood, by Annie Dillard.   You will enjoy this book if you appreciate beautiful and insightful writing.  It is non-fiction about a woman’s childhood so it is not an exciting novel.  I had never read a book about a female’s childhood, that I can remember anyway, so that alone was a bit new for me.  Personally, I am very interested in what people think, or believe, or know, about the answers to these questions about our lives: Who are we? What are we? Why are we? Where are we going?  Annie Dillard is very very awake.  I thoroughly enjoyed her perspective and remarkable prose.

At the end of the book she asks a question.  The question is one you’ve undoubtedly heard or thought of sometime in your life:  “What would you do if you had fifteen minutes to live before the bomb went off?”  This time around I gave this question some serious thought.  All I’d want, I decided, would be to put my arms around the people I love, say I love you, and just hold on.  That’s it.

© Steve Stewart and See Next Rock, 2013