Bugs and People

Wolf spider.  The name says it all.

I am like most women (and some men, I’m sure).  Insects and mice give me the willies.  I can face an audience of 4,000 in a theater without a problem.  I travel in airplanes and ask for a window seat.  I fantasize about being a storm chaser.  I laugh at death.

Well, I don’t laugh at it, but death doesn’t scare me as much as it should, which is pretty strange, when you think about it.

But let me see a mouse or be accidentally touched by a centipede and I will be the first person out the door, screaming at a pitch only dogs can hear.

There must be an evolutionary reason for the way human females react to creepy crawlers, going back to the days of the caveman.  Our male ancestors probably came home from a hard day of hunting bison to something like this:

FEMALE:  Og!  You home!  Good!  Big spider in cave!  Go kill it!

MALE:  Spider little.  You big woman.  Why YOU no kill it?  Take rock, go bang!  Easy!

FEMALE:  It make big squish!  I got to look at it, clean it up.  You big man.  You kill bug or I make you sleep on floor tonight.

MALE (as he reluctantly goes into the cave to assassinate the critter):  Women!

Well, it will soon be time for me to go home.  I hope to have a nice, restful evening – unless there’s a water bug there, ready to pounce on me.