I told her, “Well, that’s what you get for wanting to marry a spider. They got huge families!!”
“But I love him”, she retorted.
I shrugged, “You made your bed and now you’ve got to lie in it”.
She gave me a long stare, folded her arms and huffed. “I can’t stand them crawling all over me. Especially Uncle Jimmy with his beady eyes! All eight of them!!” she explained with a pained look.
I empathised with her. There were certainly a lot of spider family members. She moved in about two weeks ago, after the rainy season. But attention followed her quickly, like any young lady in a new city or town. Boys, of course. But I grew concerned when she was getting closer to Jake the Legs. He had a bit of a reputation, and I often wondered if she knew about that, being new to the place and all. I did try to drop some hints to make it known, and I hoped she got it.
“Well,” I said, trying to measure my words carefully, “If you can’t handle the heat, get out of the kitchen”, but the words escaped me before I could filter them. As you can tell, I am neither good at measuring nor knowing the sensitivities of mentioning the word ‘kitchen’ to a young female.
“ONE MORE WORD OUT OF YOU AND I AM GOING TO BLUEREDGREENYELLOWBROWNBLACK!!!!” she screamed, almost wrecking my eardrums. I’ve never heard such colourful words from one so young. I can understand that this was a troubling situation for her.
With an apologetic look, I said, “Well, you are a lizard living in my toilet. I’ve only seen you scurry around once in a while,” I explained. “How will I know what to say about the interspecies relationship between a spider and a lizard?”
She glared at me, muttering under her breath, “Humans”, and turned her head away in anger.
Sheepishly, I asked, “Can I finish peeing now and get back to bed? It is 3 am and I have work tomorrow”.
She gave another death glare and crawled back under the vanity mirror without saying another word.
Thank goodness, I didn’t walk with spiders.