Sticky Troubles...

This time of the year there are a few things that always scare me.

One especially comes to mind when school starts.

When I was in elementary school, I lived close enough to walk. I loved to walk to and from, with my friends, or alone.
That is except past the vacant lot where the weeds were tall and hung out over the edges of the sidewalk.
Back in the day we wore red, or white, knee high, cable knit sock's. They were sort of heavy.
Well every single time I would walk, ok run at top speed, past that lot, it happened every single time...

At least one, if not more, of these ugly, icky things would find me. Sticking firmly to my sock, skirt of *shiver*...land on my head!

I would shriek, slapping at the offender, running helter skelter past another lot or more.

It took me a while to figure out that if I threw my book bag down...I would have to go back and get it.

That would just restart the process.

If I swung the bag around to ward off those barb footed hoppers, I usually ended up smacking myself in that process.

Finally I got it figured out that if I just closed my eye's and ran really fast past, brushed my hand above the grass hopper's and locusts, that would give them enough incentive to hop off on their own volition.

Sometimes it  was so hard to wait for them to leave on their own.

Being older and supposedly wiser... I have found that grass hopper fears come disguised as other things too. Some of them pretty big and pretty scary. Some of the things make me want to do all of those things I did when a particularly ugly hopper would attach itself to me.

It has taken me some time to figure out that some scary things don't leave when invited to do so, they just need to be given time to work themselves out. Some of the troubles need to be looked at from a distance...



Sometimes that is very hard. to do.