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We've been in our current home almost 10 years. When we first moved here a neighbor warned us, in earshot of our children, "Don't let them play in the gatehouses, they are full of black widow spiders."
The neighbor's words were evidently taken at full value by my listening children. Fine by me- sending my children off to play in the entrance of the neighborhood by a busy street was never on my to-do list anyway. Fast forward 10 years. 10 years of which I've never had to tell a child to avoid the gatehouses. I'm taking littlest man, all of 5 years old, walking with the dog. On a whim I turn down into the entrance instead of our normal walk.
Halfway to the gatehouses Littlest becomes agitated. "We are not allowed!"
Um, "You are not allowed without Mommy- but I'm taking you this way so it's fine."
"But the dog!"
"The dog is allowed with me too."
"But the spider!"
"What spider?"
"The spider what lives in the entrance and will eat us."
"What? Do you mean the spiders that are sometimes in the gatehouse?"
"No." Whereupon he grabbed the leash and pulled me to a stop and pointed.
"It lives in there and if the dog, or someone little walks too close the spider will jump out and grab it and drag it in."
I've always wondered how long the phrase, "it's origins are lost in the mists of time," implies... now I know it means 10 years.
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Shelob's True Origins
We've been in our current home almost 10 years. When we first moved here a neighbor warned us, in earshot of our children, "Don't let them play in the gatehouses, they are full of black widow spiders."
The neighbor's words were evidently taken at full value by my listening children. Fine by me- sending my children off to play in the entrance of the neighborhood by a busy street was never on my to-do list anyway. Fast forward 10 years. 10 years of which I've never had to tell a child to avoid the gatehouses. I'm taking littlest man, all of 5 years old, walking with the dog. On a whim I turn down into the entrance instead of our normal walk.
Halfway to the gatehouses Littlest becomes agitated. "We are not allowed!"
Um, "You are not allowed without Mommy- but I'm taking you this way so it's fine."
"But the dog!"
"The dog is allowed with me too."
"But the spider!"
"What spider?"
"The spider what lives in the entrance and will eat us."
"What? Do you mean the spiders that are sometimes in the gatehouse?"
"No." Whereupon he grabbed the leash and pulled me to a stop and pointed.
"It lives in there and if the dog, or someone little walks too close the spider will jump out and grab it and drag it in."
I've always wondered how long the phrase, "it's origins are lost in the mists of time," implies... now I know it means 10 years.
.
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1 comment:
That's hilarious! Poor little guy. Do you think the story evolved, or did an older sibling make it up to scare him?
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