Daymares Volume 4

Many Hosers may not know that I spent my early childhood living in Oklahoma. O-K-L-A-H-O-M-A, Oklahoma, O-K!!!! I lived there from the time I was 2 until I was in the 2nd grade (however old that is). As a kid I really liked it. The dirt is red in Oklahoma, and we had a lot of it, so when you went out and played for a whole day, you could home looking like a real mess. I had a huffy bike. I played t-ball. I learned to look both ways before crossing the street. It was great. But it was in Oklahoma where one of my recurring daymares was born. Check it out after the jump.


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We had lots of critters where I grew up. Scorpions. Fire ants. Cute little things called Horned Frogs that always peed on you when you picked them up. And in the 8-legged realm, tarantulas and black widows.

Tarantulas were okay because they were big enough you could see then from pretty far away. Only occasionally would one catch you by surprise (usually when climbing over fences or on trees). And I don't think these tarantulas were poisonous because I don't remember my parents ever freaking out about them. Black widows, on the otherhand, were made by God to kill small children. To do this, they would hide in your shoes, and then they would bite you. That is how kids in Oklahoma died. So, as a child, it was always a rule that we had to shake our shoes out before we put them on. Pound your shoe on the groud, turn it upside down, and wait for the killer spiders to leave before you put it on. You knew they were killer spiders because they have an hourglass on their back (but it doesn't really look like an hourglass in my opinion). That is how I made it out alive.

And now this is my daymare in 2009 - that I will get bit by a spider hiding in my shoe. I don't always look inside my shoes, but if I'm putting on a pair I haven't worn in a few days, you bet I do. That's what happened this morning - I was going out to get a coffee and I reached for a pair of Puma's I haven't worn in a month or so. So, I smacked them heel down on the floor a couple of times, lifted up the tongues, looked inside and WAIT FOR IT......... No spiders. Whew! KillerB1 lives to see another day.