Saturday, August 07, 2004
"SCAPEGOATING" MAY SOMETIMES BE UNJUST, BUT "SCAPESPIDERING" IS ALWAYS FAIR
I am not persuaded by Lancet's recent Viewpoint scolding me because I fall for the unjust scapegoating of spiders as medical threats. It's not the disease threat I recoil from, it's the extra legs. Any creature with more than four legs deserves to be viewed with suspicion.
One of the great benefits of boyfriends/husbands is that one no longer has to deal with a bug issue by screaming one's best blood-curdling scream and hoping that the creature takes the hint and scrams. Instead, one sweetly informs the guy "there's a spider in the bathtub" and lets nature take its course. Luckily, all the guys I've known seem to have had no problem with bug-disposal duties. The Warrior Monk cheerfully takes on squirrels as well, but feels that bats deserve a reward.
The woman who recently broke her leg trying to avoid a "tiny spider" in her garden? I sympathize with the anti-leg sentiment, but I'd like to think that even I would have had the courage to direct it to one of the spider's eight, rather than one of my own two.
One of the great benefits of boyfriends/husbands is that one no longer has to deal with a bug issue by screaming one's best blood-curdling scream and hoping that the creature takes the hint and scrams. Instead, one sweetly informs the guy "there's a spider in the bathtub" and lets nature take its course. Luckily, all the guys I've known seem to have had no problem with bug-disposal duties. The Warrior Monk cheerfully takes on squirrels as well, but feels that bats deserve a reward.
The woman who recently broke her leg trying to avoid a "tiny spider" in her garden? I sympathize with the anti-leg sentiment, but I'd like to think that even I would have had the courage to direct it to one of the spider's eight, rather than one of my own two.
