Man, could she run

  

  
  My aunt Betty on my mother’s side of the family died when I was in college. I know that is hard to believe but I miss her. Even though it was almost 20 years ago, I remember most that she always spoke her opinion and trust me she always had one. One day when I was a kid I remember my parents getting called up to my grandpa’s.
  We got there and my dad walked into the hallway. She called through the bathroom door. “Help, LaVerne.” That was his name, given to him but my grand parents. He spelled it La capital Verne.
  He reached for the door and it was lock. “What’s wrong?” he answered through the door.
  “My toe is stuck in the faucet.” she answered.
  “Well, how the hell did you do that,” he exclaimed. It had turned out that she got into a hot bath and laid back and relaxed. As she rested she moved her toes around the faucet. Somehow her big toe became lodged in the opening.
  He worked at the door jam until the door gave way and there was my aunt in the buff. She screamed and I came running. Just as I got to the door dad scooped me and out of the way. In reflection I am glad he did that. The cost of a therapist is outrageous these days or so I have heard. After what seemed like forever. My dad managed to get a towel in there to cover the poor woman up. I can remember it took a long time working her out of the tub. Once she was out we left.
  That wasn’t the last time we had to save the poor woman. My dad had to go up there for spiders and bugs. Once we made a trip up there to find her and my sister on a table. When dad asked, “Why are you standing on top of the table?”
  She exclaimed, “Rat!”
  He search the house and came up with nothing.
  “No, Vern, you find the rat!” she screamed.
In the end, the rat turned out to be a common field mouse. He found the poor think hiding under the couch. He chased it out the front door and my aunt disappeared into the bathroom. Dad called through the door    “Don’t get stuck in there, I’m not coming back.”
  That wasn’t the only time she got scared of a mouse. Once I was alone in my room and my mother knocked on the door. She opened it and asked if my aunt and she could come in. I to tell you the truth was a little freaked at the sight of the two women entering my room. They were on a field trip to see my mice. Mom had told her that kept mice in my room.
  She looked in long enough to see that they were secured and left my room swearing never to return. I took offense to my aunt comments. So hatching a plan, I left my room and headed down the stair into my parents room. In my mom’s jewelry chest was a rabbit’s foot on a key chain. It was made to give luck to the person who owned the object. Just as I closed the case my mother open the door to her room. To my surprise, once I explained what I was doing my mother jumped at the change in to help. I think she was just glad she wasn’t on the receiving end of one of my pranks, but that is another story.
  I went back up the stairs and my mother announced, “We have a special treat. My son James will be bringing his pet mouse down to show use a trick.” She didn’t tell everyone that I planned to make a grown woman disappear.
  “HE BETTER NOT!” is what I heard from the lips of my aunt.

  I put the rabbit’s foot into my balled up hand, I remember it didn’t look alive, so I put the key ring around my pinky finger. Stepping into the Dining room I notice everyone gathered around the table. I walked up to my aunt and produced the fake mouse. She looked on and didn’t jump as I had predicted until I wiggled my little finger and the fake mouse wiggled.
  A lot happened in just a few seconds. I heard language come out of my aunt’s mouth that I won’t repeat here. I will leave it to your imagination. She stepped back reached for a handful of salad and throw it in my direction. I heard a few more choice words and she disappeared into my parent’s bathroom.
  Leaving the key chain on the counter and I went back upstairs to my room. I might add that I never saw the rabbit’s foot again.
  A few minutes later I heard foot steps and my door opened. Just as I looked up from my bed a pan of ice water hit me in my chest. The door closed and I ran to see my aunt bounding down the stair. The only think I can remember thinking was, “Man can she run.”

Spiders

  
  I have had my share of spiders haunt my dreams over the years. It probably has something to do with my parents. Yeah, I know how people say that people blame their parents for everything. "Why can't they just take responsibility for their own actions"? Well, truly, this time can I point the finger at my parents. They are the ones responsible for my fear of spiders.
  Case in point, when I was 6 to 12 years old I was forced to watch scary movies. Back when I was little the "late movie" was the one after the news. It was scary and most children would be in bed by that time. We didn’t have cable, we relied on what was on the TV and not “on demand”, The DVR or the “interweb“. We had three channels, ABC, CBS and NBC. Back then FOX wasn’t being broadcasted in our area. On Friday night, we would sit in front the TV and watch the movie of the week. Kind of like the movies that are shown on the LIFETIME channel. This was before Video rental store and Beta-max.

  

  My parents liked to watch me jump, so they would wake me up to watch the late show on Friday night. The scariest movies back then seemed to be the ones about radioactive spiders. Movie plots were always the same. Monster comes to small town. We see small town, and how nice it is just before someone dies, the rest of the movie is spent trying to kill the creatures. The trouble was my parents wouldn't let me see the end of the movie.
  Come on, think about it. Let a small child see thousands of spiders killing a town full of people and then send him back to bed to dream of the ending. The dream never worked out in my favor. In my dreams, King Kong chased me for years before I found out he was dead. The moral of this story is; just let the little kid see the ending!
  It all ended the night when my parents figured out I liked the late show, except the ones about spiders. I never could get over them. Luckily, my wife hates those kinds of movies more than I do, which means I don’t have to watch them anymore.
  I wasn't the only one in my parent’s life that hated spiders. My dad's best friend was known to be afraid of spiders. Ask anyone in Sunnyside. He would find a spider and spray chemicals on the area like it was a World War One battlefield.

  

  One day in particular comes to mind. I wasn't there, but I heard about it many times from my father who brought the story up every few months around the dinner table, campfire or just standing along side the street. It didn’t matter to him; he just looked for someone to share that story.
  They had been working and were heading back from a job, when a dust spider dropped down in front of my dad from the sun-visor on to the dash. His friend noticed the little spider cross the dash and stop in the mid way to the other side.
  Dad hadn't noticed the flea sized spider and continued down the road, traveling 25 miles an hour. His friend was lucky they weren't on the freeway. The spider going about its day jumped down and was caught by the air from the vent and landed on the seat next to my dad's friend, who in turn started to struggle with my dad sticky truck door. He was again lucky that that door did stick so my dad could slow down to 15 MPH before his friend jumped from the truck, slapping his leg like a horse jockey trying to win a stakes race.

  
  With the old pickup stopped, my dad's friend made him go through the truck for the remains of that little spider. The friend refused to get back in in the vehicle. He soon displayed the spider and they were off down the road, but not until my dad made the man put his seat belt on and lock his door. He never told him that what he displayed was a bit of string just to get him back in the truck. I think he had given that little spider a heart attack. I would tell you his name, but he is still running around Sunnyside, mostly from spiders.
  I make my wife sick every time I tell her I read somewhere that a human eats an average of 14 spiders in their life time. As I mentioned before, she hates spiders more than I do. We have our own story revolving around spiders. We had a little visitor in our wedding.
  It was a nice day to get married. Fall was in the air and the spiders in Amboy, Washington must have been cold and there were more than a few spiders in that old church. In the middle of the ceremony, a spider decided to join the proceedings. The spider fell from the ceiling and landed on the pastor's head. I whispered, oh so quietly, "There is a spider on your head." He went on with the ceremony, but it was distracting. I could feel my soon to be wife backing up, and I knew something had to be done before the wife screamed and bolted from the church.
  I pleaded with the man, "Kill it before I do." It would have looked like I had gotten mad as I suddenly karate chopped the preacher of that fine community church. Luckily, he reached up and swiped the little distraction away.
  I asked my wife if she could remind me of a funny story involving her and she came up with this one. Might add, I have her permission to share the story.
  It was early fall in Ellensburg, Washington. She lived at this boarding house with 5 other people and most of them were guys. It was a college boarding house. She went in to the bathroom and did a little reading. When she was finished with her reading she happen to glance up as a spider dropped from the ceiling of the bathroom and into her pants which laid around her ankles.
  The next part of the story is true but the order of events is only speculation. It went something like this: she dropped the magazine, took one shoe off, opened the door, took the second shoe off, and left the bathroom. Somewhere in the hallway, her pants and underwear flew the rest of the way off, but she continued to run, screaming, from the area. This happened in about 3 seconds, and I am sure she had forgotten how many guys she lived with. It is always an adventure when my wife is involved.
  We all have spider stories. I try to show my son every time I see one that they live peacefully all over the world, just not in his mama’s jeans.