MATE, I HAD
a good chuckle at this one, but it’s kind of a serious matter for some people who really are truly terrified of anything with more legs than a daily-double. The partner of a mate of mine, many years ago, went to check her make-up in the vanity mirror at about 60km/h one day (stupid enough in itself) and when a big, hairy spider crawled across the mirror, she panicked, hit the picks and bailed out. Problem was, she was still doing 10km/h or so when she flung the door open and performed her tuck-and-roll. The car, not afraid of the spider one bit, and relieved of the obligation to obey a driver, continued to do its thing. Until it tired of staying on the playing surface, jumped a kerb and head-butted a telegraph pole. The former driver was a little scuffed and bruised. The car was bordering on a write-off. And the spider walked away with not a scratch.
But it ’s funny, isn’t it, how once you’ve seen a creepy crawly, suddenly you’re itching all over. Or you see one mozzie, and then all you can do is lie awake in the dark listening for the bastard to come back.
I‘m not sure whether, post-Ark, spiders really do travel in pairs, but there’s one thing that does and it’s something learner drivers should be taught (but I bet they aren’t). And that’s that fire engines often travel in pairs. So, just because you’ve moved over and given way to one, don’t immediately assume that you can move back into your lane, ’cos there’s often a second one right up the tailpipe of the first.
“THE CAR WAS NEARLY A WRITE OFF AND THE SPIDER WALKED AWAY WITHOUT A SCRATCH”