Kids say the darndest things, thank god spiders don’t.

Posted: June 17, 2022 | Author: samsywoodsy | Filed under: Brief...therefore witty. | Tags: funny, Humour, kids, spiders |Leave a comment

So, with two young children running around and beginning to say things (my one year old daughter said “Love you” for the first time today whilst I put her to bed, whilst my son sought me out in the kitchen whilst washing up to tell me “Daddy, two of The Beatles are DEAD”), I’m reminded that having something to say is a matter I really enjoy talking about.

It wasn’t long ago that I noted publicly (as public as a blog can be…public if any cares enough to give a damn to look at it) that sometimes all you need is something to say.

This has served me well, with interviews, romantic dates, speeches, parental lessons, and perhaps most especially when I would like to blog but don’t have anything to write about.

It’s akin to penning a novel about how nice it would be not to have writer’s block.

Writer’s block.

That’d be a woe far more begrudgingly acknowledged if it was a granite block in the center of the town, which writers could bang their head against to clear the haze. That’d have miners and sailors nodding across the pub at writers, heads heavily bandaged, but at least now having something to write about.

OH MY BABY JESUS (I love that baby) MY WIFE JUST CALLED ME OUTSIDE TO OUR GARDEN SHED TO SEE A SPIDER SLIGHTLY LARGER THAN OUR GARDEN SHED.

We’ve locked all the doors.

If that spider wants into my house, it’ll have to learn to climb up the drainpipe or something ridiculous like that.

I don’t like spiders.

They don’t like me, but that’s usually ‘afterwards‘.

This one in the shed was a big bulky bugger too. One of those ones with a lot of body – like its got some sass.

It’s sassy-sense was tingling. BBW – Big Black Widow.

It wasn’t really a black widow, just a common-garden-terrifying-spider with mandibles it appeared to be able to lean on.

Then it moved. And at once the whole world felt as though it was made from spiders, where even the concrete beneath my feet felt like the suspicious tickle of WHATTHEFUCK…ITSINTHEFOOTKILLTHEFOOT.

‘Tickle’ is a good description of how a spider moves. Combine ‘tickle’ with ‘stalk’, and we’d be hitting the nail on the head. Or we could just hit the spider and just make do with ‘splat’. Maybe ‘tickle’ is how they feel when there aren’t actually any around but you’re still dwelling on them.

I don’t like spiders.

And they still don’t like me.

Maybe because they’ve read this.

Maybe they can’t read.

Spiders are illiterate, sure, but I wouldn’t throw that in their face. That’s what my slipper is for.

My wife kept calling the spider “he” to begin with, before each time quickly correcting (wrongly) to “she”, whilst I had been quite happy to make do with “it”, then to do away with “it” and never think or worry about “it” again from behind a locked door.

However, my thinking towards pronouns changed too as I kept watching it. It was so big, I feel like only a collective noun would really be appropriate for this singular “them” of a spider.

Crows are known as ‘murders’, hyenas are a ‘cackle’….this spider in my shed should be an ‘punchitinalegtwice’.

I don’t know if their legs are the worst part, nor the mandibles, nor the eyes. I think it’s the silence.

‘A silence of spiders’. That is way, way too eerie a collective noun than I’m going to permit then, no matter if it is perfectly appropriate.

Something isn’t appropriate if I’d rather it wasn’t.

I’ve seen bigger spiders before this one though. Not just seen them. Heard them.

This might counter my earlier point about silence (also in turn upsetting my second point about appropriateness – making it inappropriate, which according to the flip of that exact point might make it appropriate….going on and on about this same point just isn’t….now’s not the time), but I did once encounter a common-garden-terrifying-spider that was so huge I could hear it coming.

It ran around the corner of my windowsill and waved its legs at me, like a yobbo. I shut the window sharpish, but could still see it waggling its oh-so-too-many limbs at me.

I don’t like spiders.

Spiders don’t like me, most evidently.

I do like writing this way, reacting to what is occurring – like my wife calling me outside to see a spider.

I’d better make sure the doors are still locked. It might try to get in, plus my wife.

At the start of this piece I began by sharing something that my children had said to me today. Here’s another:

My wife went to get a tattoo today, a real beauty – a snowdrop flower on the back of her neck. I never thought her neck could get any lovelier (why the hell would anyone thing such a thing about necks?), but now it is, and it is forever.

I told my son this, that his mummy was going to the tattoo shop to get a new tattoo, and he replied with concern: “are her other tattoos broken”?

All you need is something to say, but sometimes its nice to have something said to you too.

Sam

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