I fear that I may have passed this overwhelming hatred of all things insect, arachnid, and myriapod ... oh, lets throw reptilian in there as well ... on Bruce Lee and, occasionally, Jackie Chan.
I'm not sure if it was the high pitched, blood-curtailing screaming I would do when faced with an eight legged creature of death as I would watch it slowly climbing a wall or dangling from a ceiling or the horror that would grasp me and suck all breath from my lungs if I happened upon a centipede whilst cleaning and tidying in the basement that put Bruce Lee over the edge ... or if he was simply born with a healthy disposition to hate all things creepy crawly.
But regardless of the origination of this fear in him ... he has it. And he is completely, unabashedly terrified of bugs.
While on vacation at my parents place last week ... in the country ... with lots of bugs ... he and his brother and cousins were in the jumping castle and I was sitting in a rocking chair on the porch enjoying some coffee and butter tarts when there was suddenly a cacophony of screaming and shouting from the jumping castle. Thinking one of the boys must surely be suffering from a broken or altogether lost limb I ran to the site of the emergency only to find four boys huddled together screaming and pointing at an earwig.
Now me and my sister-in-law, both knowing that we should calm the boys down and tell them it's only a bug and not to worry, decided instead to scream and jump up in down joining in the chorus of horror and together pointed at the earwig exclaiming "Ewwww gross! A disgusting and nasty earwig, ewwww, ewwww!"
This did not improve the children's situation in the least and they screamed even louder still ...
I finally snapped myself back into reality and ran for a Kleenex and bravely climbed inside the jumping castle - ignoring the 100 lb. weight limit - and killed the offending bug and ended the temporary nightmare for all four children. (I have little doubt that my sister-in-law would have performed this brave act herself were she not, at the time, holding on to the youngest member of her family.)
There were a few other earwigs that needed to be killed and I chose to pass the noble duty on to my brother ... only because he was standing there and I felt that in my delicate condition I shouldn't be climbing in and out of a jumping castle in the heat and humidity.
I began to take notice over the remainder of our time at my parents house that while playing Bruce Lee would suddenly run from a room to find me saying something along the lines of "scared mommy, there's a spider ... scared.
Fair enough, I would think to myself, after all spiders are nasty and in some parts of the world spiders can kill you. So I would investigate.
I realized there may be a bit of problem when my investigations would lead me to a room that did not, in fact, contain any spiders, rather there would be a few house flies buzzing around the window frames ... usually on the outside of the house.
Bruce Lee would stand ... bravely ... beside me with a look on his face somewhere between complete horror and severe constipation until I assured him that the common house fly was not a deadly spider and had not been known to kill anyone and was, furthermore, on the outside of the house.
Bruce Lee would look at me doubtfully and resume his playing on the opposite side of the room.
Yesterday I got a phone call from Bruce Lee (who was at the time driving to Michigan with his brother and his grandparents) ... when I answered a little voice said "Hi mommy ... hi. There is a bug."
"What baby, a bug?? Where?? In the car?"
"There's a bug. Mommy. There is a bug. Scared"
I'm completely helpless at my desk thinking why hasn't anyone done anything about this bug ... clearly the poor child is terrified ... when Jackie Chan gets on the phone ...
"Hi Mommy"
"Hey buddy ... what's up? Is Bruce Lee OK? What is this bug he's talking about?"
"Oh, I think there was a bee outside of the window or something ... I dunno ... he's freaking out ... but there's nothing in the car."
So I vowed that I would be less of a freak when faced with any kind of spider, bug, reptile ... whatever.
This morning I was alone on the first floor of the office ... a dark office ... and just sitting down at my desk to turn on my computer. I lifted a pad of paper off my desk and a cockroach skittered out from underneath. I screamed loudly and whilst screaming and jumping, smashed the cockroach to death with my heavy duty stapler.
There was perhaps a bit of overkill on my part, but all in all I think I handled the situation in a completely calm and rational fashion.
I can totally lick this fear of bugs.
At least before I have to send Bruce Lee to camp ....
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