Irrational Fear

I think my fear of spiders is rational.  For one thing, spiders have too many legs. Watching them shoot across the floor on all those legs is creepy.

Spiders also have too many eyes.  I read at Discoverwildlife.com that many people mistakenly think all spiders have eight eyes.  “While most spiders have eight eyes,” the fact site states, “there are some that only have six, and even some spiders that have fewer than six eyes.”

Small comfort, that.

My absolute limit is two eyes.

My fears are well-founded.

My housecat, on the other hand, has a lot of irrational fears.  He fears my neighbor, Kevin, which makes a little sense.  But he is also afraid of one of my two brooms (the big one).  He fears my vacuum cleaner.  For a time, my sneezing freaked him out.  He would dart out the room whenever I sneezed.  He has gotten better about that.

Yesterday, I terrorized my cat with something new: my Swiffer duster.  When he saw me walk out into the kitchen with the Swiffer in hand, he exploded into the air and then streaked back into the master bedroom to hide.

“Dude!” I yelled after him.  “It’s just a duster.  It’s soft and feathery.  And it’s a nice, powdery blue-green color.”

And then a thought occurred to me.  I brought the Swiffer closer to my face and studied.  “We’re good, buddy,” I called back to the cat.  “It doesn’t have eight eyes either.”

PHOTO: Scary Stuff

—Mitchell Hegman