Spiders, Ants and More Than You Need to Know

Not long ago, I picked up a tangled bit of black yarn off the floor. You'd be surprised (well, maybe not, if you have boys) how much debris ends up on the floor. I'm forever picking up straw wrappers and broken plastic bits and string. It was only after I fingered this squishy bundle on the way to the trashcan that I realized I was fondling a dead spider.

That reminded me of the time I picked a speck of chocolate off my shirt and popped it into my mouth. What should have tasted like every other Oreo cookie crumb I'd ever eaten tasted bitter and spicy and . . . like an ant, apparently.

Remind me never to go on Fear Factor, despite my nifty parlor trick of never throwing up. (Until my two pregnancies--I threw up exactly twice, once each pregnancy--I hadn't vomited since seventh grade. For those of you who are not math whizzes, I was in seventh grade way back in 1978. My stepmother made porkchops-on-the-run which involves a can of cream of mushroom soup and rice and a packet of onion soup mix and I became violently ill. A coincidence? Probably, but I cannot look a porkchop in the eye without remembering how skinny I felt when I returned to my seventh grade classroom after barfing for a few days in a row.)