It’s time for the insect invasion

You can hear the pitter-patter of little feet around the house now. Well, actually it is more like the pitter-patter of six or eight or 10 little feet. With the advent of cold weather, those tiny ants, spiders and other unknown creatures that have parents are moving into your home.

Now I say this with all the love and respect in my heart, but there is something about a woman who spots a spider scurrying across the floor that makes her go into an exorcistic frenzy and beat this tiny thing to death, over and over again.

If there was a block of cheese the size of a car battery and the woman dropped it on the spider’s head from a stepladder, with a direct hit, it still wouldn’t be enough. She would have to keep smacking it, stomping it, screaming at it, whaling at it, until the aneurysm she didn’t have before she saw the spider breaks and oozes carbon monoxide out of every orifice in her body. Not that I would ever do this or have any experience in the arachnid area, but I hear things. And no, my pants aren’t on fire, and I am not running for office!

Yes, I stand accused. I once beat a teddy bear to death. It had fallen under a bed. I was convinced it was a rodent that had scurried under there; I took a broom and was relentless. It wasn’t until a glass eye rolled out that I realized I might have overreacted.

Men seem to have the opposite reaction. If a woman doesn’t alert him to a spider, then it really doesn’t exist. In fact, even if a guy is alerted to a spider, he really isn’t interested until at least the 50th bloodcurdling scream or halftime, depending on which comes first.

Insects and spiders know this; for years they have studied the human male species and used the material they’ve accumulated in a scientific, constructive way, mostly at their bachelor stag parties and at Saturday night comedy clubs. Just showing a presentation about a human male in his Barcalounger eating a bag of corn chips in his NFL jersey will have them rolling in the aisles, holding their sides and gasping for spider breath.

There aren’t many things insects are sensitive enough to fear. Insects can handle even exterminators. Usually they meet them at the entrance to the development and some money changes hands, or sometimes with the more resistant ones, tickets for an all-expense-paid cruise to the Caribbean. Hey, these guys have to make a living too. I’m not saying all of them, but I hear things. Sometimes when a house is sold the contract goes with it, but often the arachnid community has to chip in when a new exterminator is brought on board. These things can be worked out.

But women are a different entity. Spiders spend postgraduate work on the female human species. It is mandatory that every spider from birth signs on to attend training camp, where they are outfitted in special Air Jordans for quietly sneaking across the floor. You can imagine how expensive this is when the average spider goes through 16 a day.

A mock-up cardboard female human figure is used, usually someone like June Cleaver, for dry runs on being spotted, for they know women can sense the slightest movement out of the back of their head; this sense has been honed from taking sharp instruments away from children.

Then insects learn battle tactics where they tuck and roll, zig and zag, and are heartened by the theme song, “Run Forrest Run.” I’m not being hard on the insect community. It’s just that now is the time when they load up that microscopic Bekins Moving Van and head inside. They’ve had all summer to study. They know it’s a political year and you will believe anything. So unless you have DNA or can make a chalk outline, be prepared to go the distance. You’ll start hearing things too.