The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary. -- H.L. Mencken
An innocent trip to the Central Market resulted in a severe attack of
arachnophobia (and a meal) when a depraved street kid set her vicious
pet spider on an unsuspecting shopper.
The shopper, yours truly, was selecting a new book when his arm and
heartstrings were tugged by a doe-eyed beggar child. With my wallet
out to pay for the book, I couldn't really ignore the malnourished
youngster and I gave her a few hundred riel.
Turning back to complete my purchase, the tugging on my arm continued
so I turned round to see the child giggling from a safe distance and a
gut-twistingly evil spider on my arm. It was black and hairy and its
fangs were dripping with poison. Its mesmerising movement was taking
it up my arm… towards my face!
I must have mumbled some confused, high-pitched babble in my panic,
but it quickly became clear that the devious arachnid was in cahoots
with that sly beggar-girl vermin and I had better watch my wallet
while fending off the eight-legged monster. I braced for a sideways
sweep of my free arm that would knock it off and simultaneously
project it into stamping distance, but the urchin deftly picked it off
me and ran off with it, no doubt to scare the pants off some other
foreigner. My wits slowly returned.
Everyone nearby was looking. The woman I'd been buying the book from
shouted something stern at the child which seemed to satisfy everyone:
The event was over, so checking that my wallet was in place, which it
was, I headed to the Foreign Correspondent's Club for a restorative.
The next time I went to that market there were stalls selling the same
hairy buggers deep fried in batter. I savoured a moment of
satisfaction knowing what fate had claimed the savage beast and
allowed myself a fiendish cackle. Deep-fried hairy spider tastes of
fishy cauliflower, and apart from the crunchy exoskeleton, is soft
like Mr Whippy.
