Like toenails on the blackboard

At circle time my lead teacher lifted the live cicada from the bug box.  She let it crawl around in her hands, then offered it to the first student to hold.  All the hairs on my arms stood up and screamed, "No way!" Visceral revulsion, the same as I feel whenever our Texas governor is proposed as a presidential candidate. Well, not quite that bad.

Part of my job is to model for the students the response expected by the lead teacher.  This time, though, I couldn't do it. Holding the cicada was as desirable as prolonged drilling for my dental crown.  Less expensive, but ....

All the kids except one were game to hold the cicada.  Sometimes it fell out of their hands and made that grinding sound.  Sometimes it tried to fly.  I was ever so grateful when we took it outside to return it to the wild!

The drone of the cicadas is omnipresent, cancelling out the back pocket tingling notification of my vibrating cellphone.  The wound care nurse has cleaned and dressed Dad's toe where the latest nail pulled off.  His bath aide was there, and the hospice RN was aware.  Dad has enough feeling left in his toes that this was very painful.  Dad kicked and struggled when the nurse showed me the toes earlier this morning.  My toenails screamed in sympathy.  The hairs on my arms went berserk.

This evening I'm watching a hummingbird at the feeder, and enjoying a chilled adult beverage.  Recent mornings I can't take my coffee cup out to the patio because I have a spider.  [I've known several people who claimed they could not go to work because they had a cat on their lap.]  My spider started out making little practice webs behind the pepper plant.  Now it makes a perfect web between "my" hummingbird feeder and the lawnchair or tomato cage each night.  The spider and I have a time-share agreement.  I don't smash through its web while it is eating breakfast.  It packs up its circus and leaves me unensnared in the evenings while I get myself unspun!

© 2011 Nancy L. Ruder