Summer Squash
I have always prided myself on my caring and softheartedness. I feel that I have an ability to empathize and be compassionate, and I like that about myself.
There is, however, growing evidence that I am evil. Don’t get me wrong…I’m not trying to be evil. It’s kind of like nudity at a hippie compound…it just sort of happens. Take tonight, for example.
I’m housesitting until next week for friends of mine - they have one dog and two cats. (See? I like animals. I’m just oozing with softheartedness.) As I was talking on the phone to my Dad in the TV room tonight, I looked up at the light in the middle of the room. The light fixture was one of those fan/light combos. The fan was on, and through the translucent bowl-shaped glass around the lightbulbs I could see a spider walking around. Oh, no! I thought. The spider is trapped in the bowl with the hot light! If it stays in there much longer, it will die from the heat! It will suffer until it cooks to death, like Nicole Ritchie in a tanning bed! This must not happen! I can’t stand for anything to suffer. I must get it out of that bowl.
So I took a piece of paper and bent it over the rim of the glass, trying to put it down where the spider could climb on it. This did not work. I shut the light off, and left the room. At least with the light off, it wouldn’t cook. When I came back a few minutes later, I turned the light back on. Looking up, I saw that the spider had climbed to the outside of the bowl. Hooray! He would no longer risk suffering a horrid 60-watt death.
With this weight off my shoulders and the spider away from the tiny sun, I happily went to the kitchen and grabbed a Kleenex. Returning to the room, my heart was light. I reached up to the newly-freed spider, and…squished his tiny guts out into the two-ply tissue of death. My vice-like clamp ensured that no life would be found once the tissue was opened.
It was then that I realized that I might be evil.
Well, maybe not evil. But my hatred of spiders, though not stronger than my hatred of suffering, nonetheless trumped my desire to see a life lived out in peace and good health. I comfort myself by saying that I’m not a bad person, I just really hate spiders. I hope I never get to the point where I really hate giant squid or marathon runners, because those are a lot harder to kill (much less catch). Until then, however, I am comforted by the thought that I just don’t like to see anything suffer. I wouldn’t make a very good torturer.
Of course, as recent events show, I probably wouldn’t make a very good nurse, either. (“Looks like this one has cancer….grab the really big tissue!”)
Nutter responds:
Posted: September 7th, 2007 at 9:21 am →
My band teacher in middle school squished a spider once that was climbing across her podium during class. After ending its’ tiny life she looked up at the class and said, “I always think, ‘I’m sending them to a better place.’” At the time I thought that was pretty clever. However, on closer examination that reasoning does eventually break-down.
mielikki responds:
Posted: September 10th, 2007 at 8:50 pm →
As a nurse, sometimes wanting to “squash” some actually makes you BETTER at the job. . .
I hate spiders, too. EEEEW
Aria responds:
Posted: September 11th, 2007 at 9:32 am →
Oh my darling… think of all the harmless insects spiders kill- by sucking the blood out of their helpless little paralized bodies!! My general thought about this is: spiders kill things, so it’s okay to kill them. But it’s better you smooshed it rather than let it fry.
Rachel responds:
Posted: September 11th, 2007 at 1:49 pm →
Wendy is a murderer…Wendy is a murderer!!!! (gleefully said in a sing-song voice) LOL… J/K
Andy responds:
Posted: September 12th, 2007 at 10:32 pm →
Ok, you’re evil. you killed it. Also, you just don’t get to complain about all the insects swarming around your head because there are no spiders around to eat them.
(poor little spider. I’m going to go feed the ones living outside my backdoor.)