Sympathy For The Devil

Last week, I got in Chuck (TFT) to discover a spider had spun a perfect web from the dash to the shotgun seat, and I actually opted to leave the windows closed so as not to ruin her hard work.

Last night, there was an eight-legged bump in the middle of another silken spiral, this time between the clothesline and the giant rhododendron. I turned on the back porch light to highlight it for Johnny.

“The brown ones are poisonous,” he said.

I said “Really?” and shut the light off.

And just this second I passed a yellow one dangling from my bedroom ceiling. I just blew it aside as I walked by.

What’s happening to me?

Actually, I think I learned about this when I was studying ethology. I think it’s called habituation. You know, like at the zoo: you bang on the glass enough times eventually the snakes stop startling? I must note, however, that the article I just linked to, points out that habituation is the “simplest form of learning.”

So.

I can’t learn not to buy the wrong thing all the time. I can’t learn not to put things where they’ll ruin other things. Can’t learn not to trust people I shouldn’t. Hell, I can’t even learn to shut windows against the rain. Or sprinkler. But I can learn not to be afraid of spiders.

Whoopee. At least I’m smarter than a grub. If, that is, grubs are incapable of non-associative learning – a fact I don’t seem to remember anymore.

Ah well, maybe it’s Stockholm Syndrome.