My Friend Kitty

My friend Kitty and I have been pals for many years, now that I've moved away I don't get to see her as often, but I call her every morning on my drive to work and we talk for the 15 or 20 minutes it takes me to make my way to my office... no subject is off limits between us...

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

Candy Bars, Spiders, and Snakes

MilkyWay Simply Caramel Bars - 1.91 Oz Ea, 24 Pack [Misc.]Milky Way has put out a candy bar that is just caramel covered with chocolate, I went to CVS and got one yesterday... Oh My God it's delicious... this morning's conversation began with that sentence... Kitty loves chocolate covered caramel and a friend had told her about the new Milky Way... she said that about five years ago she had found chocolate covered caramel "nuggets" in a bag made by the same company that makes the new Milky Way... she bought a bag, went back and bought another... and then... couldn't find them any more... sad... but now happy because her favorite candy combination has resurfaced...

In the middle of the candy conversation a granddaddy longlegs appeared near Kitty's front door and as she shooed it out (she doesn't kill spiders any more, but she doesn't like them either) we discussed the fear of spiders... she has trepidations but no real fear, she doesn't mind shooing them away, but doesn't want to touch them...

I imparted the story of my ex-brother-in-law, who has an irrational fear of granddaddies stemming from a time when he was just a toddler and woke up to find one of the long-legged critters sitting on his little face... I must admit every chance we got we would scare Mark with granddaddies... it seemed so funny to us that something so harmless could strike such fear into a now grown man! Kitty didn't think my story was so funny... she had the same sort of thing happen to her when she was five years old... bigger boys chasing her with spiders and into a room where she couldn't escape... frightening for a child I suppose...

Which led to my fear of snakes... much more rational to my way of thinking, but that's how fears are I guess... perfectly sensible to the person with the fear, not so valid to those who don't suffer from the same phobia...

My Mama and my Aunt Marcia were dreadfully afraid of snakes and I remember a time when they tried to shoot a black snake with my Papaw's shotgun... Mama tried to kill it with a hoe first, but couldn't so Marcia pulled out the shotgun... she was trembling and crying so hard it's a wonder she could even hold the gun... she finally steadied herself enough to shoot the "monster." Daddy always just took black snakes to the barn... they killed rats and mice, to him they were useful, to Mama and Marcia, they were the enemy!

I also added the story of the time, when my parents and my aunt and uncle ran a small general store in the late 60s... we had animal feed sacks in the back store room and my uncle and I found a green snake and made plans to terrorize as many people as we could (I was 9 or 10 years old at the time and found this diabolical plan super fun!)... deciding to start with the milk delivery man... his name was Hazel (I'm not making this up) and he was a good sport, loads of fun... while he was in the store delivering the milk, we were sneaking to the back door of the Biltmore Dairy truck he drove... opened it up and placed the snake inside then nonchalantly (of course) making our way back into the store to find a front row seat to the show that was about to begin...

Hazel went around to the back of the milk truck to load up the crates... and yelled and slammed the door... our laughter was cut short pretty soon... Hazel had cut the head off of the poor reptile so our fun ended abruptly... it was fun while it lasted!

I think I'll go have a candy bar...

No comments:

Post a Comment