What’s A Nice Spider Like You Doing In A Girl Like This? The Incredibly Disturbing Thing I Saw On TV Last Night
By David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
I’ve just seen something so disturbing, so upsetting, that I feel I must write about it in at least a small attempt to drain away the disgusting images from my brain.
I was minding my own business, lazily watching TV, not paying much attention, when a new program came on — The Gong Show.
The idea behind the show is to present acts so bizarre, so horrible, that they could not be performed in any other normal venue.
There are three judges. If the act is thought to be so terrible that it cannot be allowed to continue any of the judges can pick up a mallet and swing it against a big gong which signals the performer that his/her time has run out.
That’s the musical equivalent of a producer’s shouted “Thank you” or vaudeville’s less-than-subtle giant hook.
If no one hits the gong before the performance is over then each of the judges gives the act a score. The act with the highest score wins.
It sounds simple, but it masks a universe of horror.
I forget what the first act was but I certainly remember the second one.
It began with a rather sweet-looking young woman carrying a picnic basket. She looked a bit like the illustrations of Snow White on the old movie posters. Or maybe Red Riding Hood.
When she reached the center of the stage she withdrew a very large, very animated, live tarantula from her little basket. As it energetically crawled around her hand she told everyone that the spider was her dear pet and that it wanted to be a musician.
She then withdrew an harmonica from the basket.
“What’s she going to do with that?” I thought. I would soon learn the terrifying answer.
She informed the audience that she was going to help her spider fulfill its life’s ambition to be a musician.
Then she opened her mouth as if preparing to play a song, but instead she began shoving the live tarantula into her mouth.
After a few seconds of squirming, the twitching, hairy legs disappeared.
She gave the horrified audience a tight little smile then brought the harmonica to her lips and began to play a tune.
I didn’t pay any attention to what the song was. I was too busy screaming at my TV and peeking through the splayed fingers that struggled, but failed, to cover my eyes.
The horror.
Some time later she finished her song then opened her mouth and the tarantula climbed back out.
Other than being covered with little drops of spit it seemed unharmed by the experience.
No one rang the gong.
She told the judges that she’d been practicing this routine for two years.
Two years? She’s been shoving live tarantulas into her mouth for two f****ing years!
What would it have taken for her to decide that it wasn’t going to work?
If I had been shoving live, giant spiders into my mouth, day after day, for even nine or ten months wouldn’t I either have finally gotten it right or decided, “Hey, this isn’t going to work. Back to the drawing board. Maybe I should switch to a parakeet or a small snake.”
But no, she kept experimenting with this for two years?
Wonder Woman’s got nothing on this girl.
But that only leads to more questions.
- How many spiders did she kill in the process?
- How many did she swallow?
- What do they taste like?
- Did the spiders ever become crazed and run wildly around the room or up and down her body upon being released from their moist prison?
Now all I can think of is
- Who’s her boyfriend?
- Does he know what she does with the spider?
- Does he ever think about what goes on in her mouth as he’s sticking his tongue in there?
- In some perverse way does that excite him?
- If the spider could talk, what would it say?
If I could talk to it, should I ask, “What’s a nice spider like you doing in a girl like this?”
How am I going to get to sleep now?
You think I’m making this up, but I’m not. I’m neither that clever nor that mentally disturbed.
I’m both afraid and strangely excited about the possibility that I might watch The Gong Show again next week.
–David Grace (www.DavidGraceAuthor.com)
