Jun. 19, 2009 - To Believe or Not To Believe...
I have been accused of perfection. I have no idea why, because I am far from perfect. Perhaps I am good at hiding my faults, although I don’t think I try to hide them. In fact, I willingly admit that I have many flaws, faults, weaknesses and fears. Those who know me are sure to know my greatest fear. That is, the greatest fear that I have to face somewhat regularly: Arachnophobia.
Today my son played on this fear. He didn’t do it deliberately as he is not too fond of those 8 legged critters either. Although what he said did make me think he was just pulling my leg.
We were at the grocery store, loading all our groceries into our big ugly truck. Matthew was behind me when he said, “Uh, Mum…you’ve got a big spider on your back.” I turned to look at him and he was having a hard time keeping the smile off his face. “Yeah, right,” I replied. “I really believe you.” There was no belief in my voice.
“No really!” he insisted. “Matthew,” I reasoned, “I can tell you’re just pulling my leg. You can’t even keep from smiling!”
“I’m not joking!”
“So brush it off,” I said, still not believing.
“I’m not touching it!” my brave son replied.
“Sure, sure,” I was still skeptical.
“Ok, I’ll get Emily’s book and knock it off with that.”
“Ok, whatever.” I sure am a hard sell.
He got the book and said he would get it to crawl onto it so I could see it. It was at this point that I began to think he just might be telling the truth, but the ensuing image of a spider crawling from MY BACK onto the book I quickly pushed out of my mind!
Fortunately he decided to just brush it off my back. I looked down. There on the ground was the creepy, 8-legged proof that he had been telling the truth all along. Shudder. I quickly stepped on it. Hard.
But usually he’s pulling off a gag. Really.
