Talking To Spiders

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Well y’all, the Professor thinks I have officially lost it as he walked in on me in the bathroom talking to a spider crawling across the floor saying, “Dude, you better go hide somewhere like behind the toilet or under the scale I never use cuz I don’t want to know some days, before you get flattened!” Do I talk to things a lot? Well, yes yes I do.

Let’s back waaaay up . . .

100 years ago when I was a little girl I, unfortunately, went to a nun ruled Catholic school right across the street from my house. Now I’m not saying all nuns are psychotic holy freaks but the ones at my school were. I think it was in their holy water, God love um, or perhaps they were forced into the nunnery against their will and it made them a bit insane and stabby.

We had this one nun that just loved pointing to us and other objects with her ‘bird’ finger and you could tell by the smirk on her face, she knew what she was doing. It was her little secret hell raising moment or moments, I should say as she ‘moment-ed’ quite a lot with that bird finger. It was freaky and God bless her hair style. Words can’t describe the butchered way she wore it. It was like her nun friend that she got to cut her hair had drunk waaaay too much of the wine, got high on that stinky dang incense, turned out the lights, got the rusty pair of scissors in the back of the drawer that no one uses anymore, spun around in circles until she was good and dizzy, on top of everything else she had done to herself, and went to town on the bird flicking nun’s innocent hair. It’s a wonder that this bird slinging nun didn’t lose an eye and hell, now that I think about it, she was probably thinking of the hair cutting nun and what she did to her hair and that’s why she was ‘birding’ all of the time. It was really being directed at her and not us. This story has nothing to do with talking to spiders, I am just reminded of it when I tell the tale of the next nun.

Moving on . . .

The other nun that stands out in my mind was a mystifying yet kind woman who wanted to grow her special ed class so she could get ahead at the nunnery and decided that I would be the only girl candidate in her all-boy classroom as well as her fantasy daughter that she never got to have since joining the nunnery. Here’s where the talking to the animals as if I was Doctor Doolittle comes in.

Aside from being a bit weird yet kind, this nun abhorred killing anything even those satanic evil roaches from the devil. I observed her catching roaches, wasps, hornets, mice, birds, you name it and would release them and I guess a bit of this rubbed off on me. You may ask how some of thos things got in the classroom, well, she left the windows open a lot and nature had a way of just coming on in.

Fast forward to my high school years . . .

I had this very smart, cool, and neat teacher who taught psychology. I looooooved my psychology class and this teacher as well. She too was like that wickedly weird but kind nun from years ago who could not kill anything.

Now, because I admired my psychology teacher and her gentle nature with bugs and other creatures, this philosophy of not killing anything has stuck with me over the years. I do make one exception and that is the devil given roaches. That is not God y’all, that’s the devil thru and thru.

I, however, because there is a freak in all of us in some form or another, take it to the next level of having inviting conversations with the creatures I find in and around my house, hence the Professor finding me having a chat with the spider in our bathroom the other day.

What prompted the conversation with my new bathroom spider friend was when I nearly stepped on him exiting the shower, “Dude, you cannot sneak up on a person like that and what, pray tell me, are you doing in the middle of the floor. If the Professor sees you, he will take your little butt out!”

I dried myself off and went about getting ready all the while telling spider fella to go and hide before he gets squished and by some miracle, he translated my southern dawl and scurried into the toilet room, where I would soon be to lotion up and put my DO on.

Well, spider fella became fascinated with a piece of toilet paper on the floor and was kinda dancing around it or something, I’m not really keen on the secret life of spiders, so as I stood there watching him, I said, “Do you seriously have a death wish today freaky spider fella cuz I just heard the door to the bathroom area open and you are about to be toast!”

The Professor asked me through the door, “Who in the hell is in there with you?” I stuttered because I was busted, “Oh, um, no one, just me and my spider friend.” As I opened the door, I looked down one more time to see if spider fella had scurried off and he surely did, right under my bathroom scale. Whew!

The Professor has this confused look of, ‘what in the hell is wrong with you woman’ on his face as he shook his head and switched places with me to pee.

He has caught me before talking to the red-tailed hawk named Mr. Pickles who I have mentioned before frequents my backyard. Now, I haven’t seen Mr. Pickles in a bit because they are mutilating the land and trees behind us to make a new subdivision and I thought him and his whole family took off.

Well, no, not true at all as I observed Mr. Pickles swoop down and try to kill my mom’s dog the other day, I’m watching their dog for a few days. As I went out to tell Mr. Pickles that his anger about having his home destroyed is being projected on my mom’s dog and that’s not fair at all and that he needs some professional help. Still pissed, he swooped at my own dog too. “Oh no you didn’t Mr. Pickles! I know you are mad about your home, I get it because I am too, but do not take your anger out on these dogs.” I was caught again talking to animal/creatures by my son, who gets me a bit better than the Professor does and he merely said, “Mr. Pickles seems pissed.” My weirdness runs in the family I guess.

Just the other day, in the clinic, I was talking to a fly that had gotten in and warned him that the boy I was about to see next had Ninja like moves and that he better fly on out or meet his death, but the invading fly insect did not listen and yes, he perished just like I told him, but not by my hand.

I don’t just talk to bugs and animals either, it is not unlike me to carry whole conversations in the clinic with LuLu the giraffe or my fish asking them why one of them is missing again and who is murder in my tank.

My daughter talks to her television and my son talks to no one quite a lot so this talking to whatever really does run in the family, but you know what’s funny, the Professor talks to himself, as do I, but doesn’t think anyone hears or notices. I think sometimes he doesn’t realize he is doing it until his son will ask, “Dad, who are you talking to?” The Professor’s head will jerk up and he will reply, “Um, no one, well, me,” and then under his breath he’ll mutter, “Damn it, influential Sharon.”

Love y’all!!♥