This show was full of a lot of things that give me the chills & that feeling of something is crawling on you and you just want to run away screaming slapping yourself like your covered in…… spiders or bugs…. Or just…. Icky… creepy…. Crawling things… just all over you, No- I’m not talking about kids- I’m talking about huge spiders as big as your hands! Snakes of all shapes and colors and sizes!!!! I asked a guy there, one of the vendors, if these snakes were dangerous and you know what he said to me? He said “No, most of them are harmless, except for the one you’re standing next too- he’s not a nice one and I can only sale him to an experienced handler, are you an experienced handler?” ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?! He must have missed all the color draining from my face as I started to take slow steps in the opposite direction shaking my head thinking this guy was INSANE- Sure sure, the icky snake was in a “cage” but all of these horrific pictures started jumping to mind of the snake lifting off the top and jumping out at me (THANKS A LOT HOLLYWOOD!). So I turned around and went to the OTHER side of the show…not that it was any better- in-fact it had the “not nice spiders” on this side, serious people…. IS there such a thing as NICE SPIDERS?! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, no no no…. no such thing. They crawl… and they are icky… and they hang from a thread you can’t see just to trap things in it to EAT-
I hate with a passion the creepy crawly things in this life- Spiders (Justin has to come save me), Snakes (I took Honey running once and a snake crossed our path and she jumped higher than I did! So much for being a tuff pit-bull!), bugs- any bugs, anything with legs on it that can crawl and hide & possible bite or jump or has to eat other bugs…. *shiver* I just can’t do it, I can’t even watch movies that are about these… these…. THINGS… Arachnophobia- HECK NO, Man-Eating-Spiders-from-Mars NO FREAKING WAY (I made that title up, shocked? LOL, but you see where I’m going with this).
If you put aside my strong feelings of hate, and general ickyness mixed with the feeling of running and screaming and the paranoia that these THINGS were all out to get me- aside for a minute, turns out that boys love this stuff… *sigh*. I just happen to have a few boys in the house who though this show was awesome (shutter)! Tucker was a huge fan of the show! I just couldn’t convince him any different; he just shook his head and laughed at me. I’ve come to the conclusion that all the radiation he had on his brain must have done some damage after all- AND as I had that thought, the movie SPIDER MAN jumped to my mind, he was standing next to the spiders- for a brief second I thought “hey, if he got bitten by a spider and he’s had all that radiation…. MAYBE just maybe…..” and then the “handler” put a huge spider on Tucker’s hand to “hold” and I abandoned all thoughts of being the mom to a new breed of superhero child- as this- huge thing was crawling on my SON! I wanted to scream…. I had the feeling that the thing was crawling all over me- so I did what any mom would do in the midst of having a nervous break down- I took out my camera and took a picture of Tucker holding this spider.
It went like this:
Tucker: Mom! Look how cool this is! Are you ok????
Me: Tucker, just smile please *click*- now just put the thing back… quickly, but NOT quickly so as to startle it- so maybe just don’t move- just be very very still and that guy can get him off of you in a very quick fast fashion without moving in a quick way as to scare it….
Tucker : This is so cool, Mom can I…
Me: Don’t you even think about asking me for a spider! You’re grounded just for having the thought!
Tucker “awww… Mom! Its so cool.., did you just say I was grounded?”
Me: Yep, all that chemo and radiation has made you crazy… I just knew it and now your rebelling and think spiders are cool and - *to the guy behind the counter* could you please not laugh at my melt down and take that thing off of my child?
We also had one run in with a yellow… odd looking snake…………OH MY…. This guy had this snake hanging from his neck, like wearing a LIVE SNAKE TIE… and Tucker said “oh cool…” and the guy turned around and said “Oh ya, this is a nice snake… here you go!” and plopped the thing around Tucker’s neck! So again, I took a deep breath… tried not to think of Anaconda snakes in the Amazon…. In a voice that was shaking and weak from all the havoc being played on my nerves- I took out my camera and said “Smile Tucker”… and then went and got Justin & the kids and left- *whew*.
A funny side note to this crazy day at the Utah State Fair grounds (where all this was taking place) they also had a cat show, so we thought that could be neat to see all the pretty fun cats. We walked in the door and all these cats were right in front of us… just right there- a lady to the side of me said “That will be $5 to look at the cats.” I said “you want me to pay to look at the cats that we are already looking at?” She said “Yes.” I said “Lets go kids, you guys can look at cats for free in our neighborhood.”
It just made me shake my head.
We got all this fun and excitement from a cancer group we are apart of called Hope Kids, thank you for letting us go, it was a good time and I’m sure I’ll only need a few more visits to my shrink to deal with this all (just kidding), thank you very much.
With love,
Justin (the brave-not afraid of anything tough macho man)…. Amber (suffering from a close encounter of the spider kind)… and Tucker (No SPIDER MAN powers yet… but a hero just the same).
