The Daughters I Never Had

I’m not afraid of aliens or ghosts, snakes or any kind of bug. I save my fear for crazy stuff like knives in the sink that beckon me to grab them and stab someone. Or inexplicably coming down with amnesia and turning into a bag lady that lives under a bridge and my family will never know hence never find me and I’d spend the rest of my life eating left-overs from a trash can.

 Now my husband and sons believe in aliens and ghosts (and Big Foot) and they are afraid of bugs, especially spiders, which makes me the official Spider Killer of our household. Although I don’t always kill them. Sometimes I just shoo them away then I tease the hell out of my scaredy-cat-estrogen-filled males about how the spiders are gonna get them while they sleep.

 Thursday morning, my son Dalan said that he and his brother Austin had to kill Godzilla the Bug the night before. I wondered what all the ruckus was about! It sounded like they were wrestling Andre the friggin’ Giant. But since no one was screaming, and the dogs weren’t barking, I didn’t get out of bed to investigate.

 “Mum it was huge!”

 “How big was it?” I was expecting to see him measure out two feet with his hands.

 He measured an inch with his fingers.

 “You’ve got to be kidding me. It took TWO of you to kill a one inch bug?”

 “Mum, it was Godzilla the bug.”

 “I’m gonna start calling you Daylinda and Austina, the daughters I never had.”

 “Go down and look at it.” He pointed to the floor indicating he wanted me to go to the powder room downstairs. “We saved it for you.”

 “No you didn’t. You were just too scared to pick it up.” I did go down to see this bug that took two strapping young lads to kill it. At first I couldn’t find it. You would think with the name, Godzilla the Bug, I wouldn’t have had a problem. However, it was barely an inch long as it was a freaken millipede, so it was barely worth the effort of walking the stairs let alone picking up its corpse with a piece of toilet paper and tossing it into the commode. Godzilla the Bug my butt.

Then Thursday afternoon, my daughter son and his friend, Devon, helped me with some yard work. There were leaves piled up behind the shed along with some lumber and blocks. I wanted it cleared out and organized. Daylinda gingerly picked up the leaves with his fingerstips as if he was picking up poopy diapers with well-manicured fingernails.

 “What are you doing? Grab a handful and throw it in the wheel-barrel,” I said as I heaved a bunch of leaves and weeds to show him what I meant.

 “Mum there could be spiders in there.”

 “They don’t eat much, Daylinda, now come on!” I goaded him as I grabbed another handful of leaves then shouted “SNAKE!” and threw it at his friend, Devon, who jumped when the leaves landed on him. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of snakes!” He wasn’t, I just startled him. Daylinda said he wasn’t afraid of snakes, either, just those fucking spiders.

Then why in the heck wasn’t he wearing gloves? I rarely wear gloves, which is stupid on my part because I do have well-manicured fingernails, however, I don’t complain if I break a nail and I’m not afraid of spiders. 

 We did manage to get the leaves and weeds cleared out and the lumber and blocks stacked up nicely. Daylinda came through without a scratch or a spider bite.

 Me, I ended up with a damn splinter.

 Later that same day, I was doing more yard work while my husband, Daisy, was in the kitchen cooking and washing dishes.