Just A Little Bit Creeeeeepy...

I had a vision yesterday, watching The (original) Stepford Wives with Beth. You all know what it’s about, and if you don’t, well, this isn’t going to make much sense. Early in the movie, Katharine Ross’ character hosts her husband’s ‘Men’s Association’ for a few hours as they talk about nothing. They’re really there to observe her and let mildly-creepy-artist-guy do his thing. Ross brought ‘em drinks and made sure everyone was comfortable, like a good hostess.

Through the entire scene, I couldn’t help but think of a fly that lived in her own house, and invited a group of spiders over for drinks. Smiling politely, one of the spiders just starts laying individual threads of silk across the fly where she’s sitting. Of course, each thread isn’t that strong. It’s only spider silk after all. And the fly, unused to the local customs, figures it’s just manners to let the spider go about his/her business. As the evening wears on, though, the individual threads start to add up; until the fly is completely covered under a huge blanket or canopy of the stuff, and she can’t move. Just for the sake of being polite.

At which point the spiders all do their collective thing. And they never stop smiling politely. I’m not saying it’s a pleasant image, but it was just one that occurred to me last night, and it stayed with me. Hooray for metaphors and so forth.