A Little Girl, her Daddy, a Spider, and a Beer Cooler

“Can I go to the lake, too?”

            “We’re going fishing.”

            “I can stay at the lake house.”
            “What would you do there?”

            “Listen to my records. Read.”

            “It’ll be a long afternoon.”

            “I don’t care. I wanna go.”

            “OK. Get ready.”

            Mother must have been involved with brother. Nana must have been assisting.

            I must have been out of my very young mind. Nonetheless, I ran around gathering up a library book, some of my 45 records, maybe a Betty and Veronica comic book.

             Daddy opened the lake house, flipped the breaker for electricity and the window unit whirred to life. The lamp switch brought illumination, and I settled in for the afternoon.

Down at the lake, Daddy and his fishing buddy got the boat ready for launch. They loaded it with rods, reels, tackle boxes, beer coolers, bait, and a stringer. I could see them from my perch atop the iron bed’s ticking-covered mattress. Then, I saw It.

            It was Godzilla the Spider. He and I were about to be cooped up together for one long, hot afternoon.Who knows where he might show up next. He used all zillion furry legs to scamper across the floor, underneath the bed I was sitting on. I stood on the mattress and made my second decision of the day. Run!

            “Daddy!” Arms wildly beating the air and feet running as fast my legs could carry them, I called again, “Daddy!”

            “What is it?”

            “A spider!”

            “Of course, there are spiders; it’s a lake house. It’s not going to hurt you. Just stay out of its way or step on it.”

            “I can’t stay there.”

            “Well, I’m not unloading this boat and taking you home. You have a choice. Go back into the house and stay cool, read your book, or get in the boat, sit on this cooler, and be quiet while we fish. What will it be?”

            “I’m going with you.” Easy decision.

            For one afternoon, Daddy and his friend fished and I sat on the cooler in a cute outfit with white shorts and an orange life vest. They took the boat under trees where water moccasins hung, snakes that could fall into the boat. Daddy admonished,“If one falls in, stay still. I’ll get it, but it’ll be hard to pull us and all this stuff out of the water if you start wiggling and yelling. There are moccasins there, too. See that one swimming over toward the boat?” I nodded, still as a statue.

            Water moccasins to the left of me, above me, to the right of me. Spider in a house in front of me. The choice was never a difficult one.

I’d rather be with my daddy. I knew for certain that wherever he was, I would be safe. 

Even if my white shorts bore the plaid pattern of the beer cooler, heat transferred after such a long afternoon, Daddy and I made a forever memory.