His Worst Nightmare Comes Calling on Eight Tiny Legs

Like most people, I have an automatic three-step procedure when I return to my darkened home:

1) Turn on the lights.

2) Turn on the TV.

3) Check for spiders.

More often than not, the evening begins with a case of the shivers, because my otherwise nondescript home apparently has been designated permanent host to the International Spider Consortium, at which leading spiders from around the world convene for the sole purpose of making me jumpy.

They set up their workshops and study groups pretty much wherever they please: behind the front door, along the kitchen baseboards, outside the shower stall, on the stairwell and, of course, under the kitchen and bathroom sinks where you keep the cleaning stuff. That explains why I never clean the place--reaching through a spider’s lair just to get some furniture polish hardly seems worth the risk.

Before moving here I spent nine years in Colorado, which always seemed rather bug-free to me. I encountered only one giant bug in my house, prompting me to describe it the next day to a colleague. I had never seen a bug with thighs before, and as I described it, my friend began sketching feverishly on a piece of paper.

“Is this it?” he asked, drawing a miniature Godzilla.

“That’s exactly it!” I exclaimed, making a mental note to always be on his side for Pictionary. “What is it?”

“A Mormon cricket,” he said. “There’s only one way to kill it--lure it onto a flat surface and hit it with a mallet.”

Before moving here, I had never associated California with bugs (“The Golden State,” “Land of Milk and Honey” “Paradise on Earth” and all that stuff), so it was disturbing to discover that I’m living in the heart of flea country, ant country and spider country.

My apartment complex features some of the most intricate spider webs I’ve ever seen. Caltrans engineers should be so gifted. It’s possible to walk into one and miss a day of work.

We should all confront our fears, however, and I’ve wondered where mine began. After all, why should we be afraid of bugs and not kitties? I’ve traced my problem (surprise, surprise) to my parents.

We lived in Texas for a year when I was a kid, and our dumpy little place featured a fine assortment of roaches and June bugs, the latter of which, I suspect, were nothing but roaches without the reputation. Anyway, my dad got this great idea that I should catch June bugs in my hand and throw them outside.

“Uh, gee, Dad, do I have to?” was met with the father-to-son phrase that has kept a subsequent generation of therapists in clover: “What are you, a sissy?”

Better to be a Hitler Youth than a sissy, so I’d snatch the June bug, hold it in my closed fist and toss it outside, making Father proud and no doubt setting the trauma-association wheels in motion.

Sadly, I’ve never shaken it. I’ll be settling in for an evening of TV when, suddenly, there in mid-step on the wall, will be a fearsome black spider. Zounds! Where did he come from? He wasn’t there a moment ago!

He freezes, sensing my presence. If only he would make the mistake of getting down on the floor, I could drop the Yellow Pages on him.

He’s too smart for that. Inevitably, the stare-down begins. I don’t move. Neither does he. I glance at the TV, then over to the spider. Glance at TV, glance at spider. Wait! He moved three inches. I sprout goose bumps. I hope he doesn’t notice. I rustle slightly, and he moves another few inches. Where’s he going? Aha, he’s trying to make it to the closet, so he can hide in my jacket and scare the crap out of me in a week or so. That fiend. Damn, he’s ruining my TV program.

He probably figures that if he moves too quickly, he’ll attract attention and I’ll try to squash him against the wall. My ace in the hole is that he has no way of knowing that, in addition to being afraid of bugs, I can’t stand to squash them by hand, because you have to get too close and, well, you know what it does to the wall. At most, I will blow in their general direction.

Silent and catlike, I grab a newspaper and roll it up. Perhaps I can chase him outside. I flick the paper at him, and he bolts. He flees the exact opposite direction of where I want him to go. I don’t have the heart to smash him, and he escapes to the hiding place where his buddies are waiting for his report.

Lamenting my inability to strike forcefully, I watch TV with lights on and, later, retire for the night.

Sleep comes, reluctantly then fitfully, sabotaged by awareness of the dangers within.

Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesday, Friday and Sunday. Readers may reach Parsons by writing to him at The Times Orange County Edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, Calif. 92626, or calling (714) 966-7821.