Tuesday, November 08, 2005

Eight Legged Monsters

I sure would love to meet Spiderman, but the spiders … No Thanks. Arachnophobia, Is it hereditary?.. It sure seems to run in my family. We are a family of 5 (now it is 7 including bro-in-law and niece), and 4 out of the 5 are shit scared of spiders. Dad being the only exception. And it is pretty much the same story in every family on mom’s side. All of mom’s sisters and brother, and most of the kids are scared of spiders. Maybe it is a genetic problem passed on to us from mom’s ancestors!!

This is the usual scenario at home, evening we will be in the living room watching TV, one of us decides to have a bath and heads of towards the bathroom, then the bloodcurdling scream

MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Mom springs into action, within seconds she appears with a broom in her hand, ready to take on the monster. Mom is scared of spiders too, but more than 28 years of experience saving her kids from them sure seems to have given her new courage.

My house is surrounded by trees, mainly mango trees and whoever planted the trees around the house had made sure that there was at least one tree whose branch in next to the bathroom ventilator or window. During the winter time, it is Spider season, not that there is any shortage of spiders in the house during the other times, but winter seems to be their favorite. And this is the time when you get to see the senior members of the spider family walking the walls for our bathrooms. The average size of the spider is surely 5 inches from tip of one leg to the opposite leg (it might be bigger that that, but I aint particularly interested in going and taking exact measurements) and the Monsters have this particular knack to hide behind something till you are completely undressed, locked the bathroom door, and started your bath before making their appearance, usually on the towel or the lock of the door. In case the spider in on the door then the “MAAAAA” waits till it is a safe distance away from the handle, or else run out, wrap yourself in something and Scream.

My cousins had come up with a coupe of neat ideas to fight them , we made wax pellets for our air guns… but after a couple of broken light bulbs later we gave that up, then came the Vacuum cleaner with its long pipe, but how do we get it out once it gets sucked in? so that idea also got dropped. It is back to the brooms now. Over the past few years I have tried my best to overcome the fear, and have managed to kill a few spiders on my own, now I know what a soldier in a battle field might be feeling, KILL OR BE KILLED.

I have been in Bangalore for more than 4 years now; my friends who know about my phobia tease me about it. I have often wondered why the guys here are not scared of the Eight Legged Monsters. I have found the reason for that now, It is Lack Of Experience … In the 4 years in Bangalore I have not come across a single spider that is at least a quarter of the size of the spiders ( the medium sized ones) from back home. How will you get scared of spiders when the biggest spider you see around here is just a centimeter long? And most of u big shots are afraid of lizards or cockroaches and I aint … so don’t mess with me :-P there are lot more lizards and roaches here than spiders.

3 Comments:

Blogger Nisha said...

AND AND AND ANDDDD the lizard was hinted at me... ekkksss...

I aint scared of spiders... take the chappal and WACK...

PS: In my house, its the exact same story except replace spiders with LIZARDS!!! And we all depend on "brave" Mom for our rescue... :D

1:26 AM  
Blogger Dinesh Babuji said...

The big shots u mention hinted me as well, I bet,for my Lizard-o-phobia.
I hope, my 6 mnths absence has not made u forget the RULE in our flat -
You kill the lizards for me, and I kill the spiders for you.

2:16 AM  
Blogger Varkey said...

U 2 are absolutely right ... be afraid ... be VERY afraid :-P

2:39 AM  

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