I was reading recently about all the problems that have arisen in the attempt to turn Spider-Man into a Broadway musical, and it got me to thinking. Not about Broadway musicals or even superhero movies, but about spiders — I hate ’em.
I think it started when I was a kid. Whenever we visited my grandparents’ rural home I always enjoyed myself, but part of the package was that they did not have indoor plumbing. That meant — you guessed it — they had an outhouse. But that wouldn’t have been so bad except for the fact that my uncle loved to tease me.
He was my mother’s much-younger brother and was almost like an older brother to me, so I was pretty gullible about anything he might say, and he knew it. That being the case, it’s probably not surprising that I believed him when he told me that there were huge spiders living down under the seat in the outhouse. After that, I was unable to sit down and do my business without visualizing a big, hairy thing the size of a poodle crawling toward my naked bottom.
I hate spiders.
Jim Stafford – “Spider and Snakes”
Geezer Music Club 
Oh lordy, I wish you hadn’t mentioned them. I hate them as well. That outhouse story rings true from my childhood too, except in the case of Australian spiders it wasn’t a myth or a tale told by nasty uncles. Here, the red-back spider loves to live under the seats of outhouses. These are quite deadly and there are known cases of death from them. Unfortunately, they aren’t big hairy things, but are quite small and it’s easy to miss them (at least until they find you).
Just one of the many interesting things that can kill you in this country.
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Sorry about the delay in getting your comment released, Peter — our power has been out for a day and a half.
I don’t envy you Aussies for your deadly critters — you have a lot more of them than we do, or just about any other country for that matter. I bet it makes a casual walk in the countryside quite an adventure sometimes.
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Oh, the memories this brings. We to, grew up with the outhouse. My main fear was at night and when the wind blew the tree behind this fixture would brush the roof and send me sailing to the house. I always knew there was a boogie man doing this. What great memories. Thanks
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And how about sitting on that hard wooden seat in the Winter? No wonder so many people had chamber pots.
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