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RUBY19-9
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1993-02-19
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57 lines
Copyright 1993(c)
SPIDERS
By Doug Dickey
Corporate America and I had gone the rounds, with gloves off,
and I was in my corner for the day. I was hoping that my recliner
could talk some sense into my tight muscles, when my three-year-
old approached me with a solemn expression on his face. A
lingering smear of jelly next to his right ear murmured of lunch.
I took the rubber band off the newspaper.
"Dad?" He leaned over the arm of the recliner to stare me in
the face. A couple of dirt crumbs clinging to his shirt dropped
onto my suit pants.
"Yes, Benjamin?" I brushed mechanically at my pants and
succeeded only in smearing the dirt.
"The spiders are outside. And they're gonna eat me up, 'cause
they're so big, Dad."
"Is that so?" I mentally checked for an opening in my next
day's schedule for a stop at the cleaners.
"Yep. And they crawl all over, and they eat you up, because
they're so big." He flung his arms out wide to show me their
frightening size. His seriousness caught my wandering attention.
I gave him a puzzled frown. "Who told you that?"
"John."
John, one of my son's playmates, was as skinny as a rail. He
was also notorious for tall tales. I wondered if his mother fed him
enough to keep the gerbils running the treadmill upstairs.
"Well, I promise that the spiders won't eat you up. You're too
big to get eaten up."
"Yeh, but John said they catch you in their nest, and eat you
up all over."
My son's eyes were pools of innocence, reflecting utter trust
in a friend's words.
"Benjamin, spiders don't eat people. People are too big to get
eaten up by spiders." I pronounced in my best Dad-knows-the-law
voice.
He blinked. "The spiders won't eat me, Dad?"
"No, son, they won't. You're too big." And, the clincher, "You
can run faster than they can, too, so if they chase you, you can
run away."
"Yeh, I can run fast, Dad!" His eyes lit up with the knowledge
that he was fleeter of foot than the spiders lurking outside.
"Yep, faster than any old spider, that's for sure."
"Yeh, I can run faster than spiders, huh, Dad?"
"You betcha, son," I said, boosting his burgeoning self-
confidence.
"Okay, I'm gonna tell John. The spiders won't eat me up 'cause
I can run faster." He scurried for the door.
"You do that, son." The door slammed shut as I flipped to the
sports section.
A few scores later, the door eased open as my son peeked
inside.
"Dad?" He approached, and hovered near my elbow.
"Yes, son?"
"John says spiders can fly faster than I can run, and they can
eat me all up, Dad."
Sigh.
END