Pollywogs!

Arabian Nights.

Scheherazade and 1001 Tales, by El Cid.

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Tale #2 – The Bish-Bish Incident.

J, Hamood and I are in the visitor living room of their apartment. J is explaining their idea for a hosh (courtyard) to me that would have it’s entrance in that room. I decide I want to look out of the window. Windows are generally large, covered with glass that is textured and opaque and covered with bars (very middle-eastern). Her window could be opened though, and being a self-proclaimed “trailer head” (no intention of insulting people who live in trailers – I have lived in one myself – merely the expression for one who has to look out of the windows at what is going on outside) I open the window to look at the space between the apartment buildings.

I put my hand on the sill and rubberneck for a minute or so. I feel something on my hand. I think it is the curtain and casually wave my hand. A bish-bish falls to the floor. I do a little panic dance. Bish-bish are big, hairy, ugly camel spiders. Ewwww!!!! J calls her dad for assistance. D comes in and a search party goes on for the bish-bish. I forgot to mention that bish-bish are FAST moving. We won’t be able to sleep knowing that it is in the apartment. A full scale (but cautious) search is in effect until the bish-bish is dispatched. D moves furniture, turns cushions, upturns chairs. Little Hamood is watching the entire proceedings carefully. The bish-bish is discovered and D “shoes” it. It goes in the garbage can. When D picks it out to take its picture it turns on him. Again it is “shoed” until it is rendered finally dead. Its picture is taken. Shudder!!

That evening M’s mom and dad come over to say hello and to meet us. We are having a nice time bridging cultural and language barriers when we mention the bish-bish. It is comforting to know (from Abu-Muhammed – M’s baba (father), that the one that crawled on me was small!! They can get as big as your hand (6” across). They won’t kill you, but it hurts when they bite and the bites can get infected. I am truly comforted.

Apparently we weren’t telling the story properly because Hamood enacted the entire scene for his Baba-Shems and Umi (M’s mom and dad) including the shoeing of the bish-bish, with himself as the actual dispatcher of the spider. Hamood continues to take the credit for the killing of the bish-bish and will enact it for anyone who cares to hear the story. He denies that his Pap had anything to do with it. I can see him 20 years from now telling his friends how he saved his Mema from a bish-bish when he was only two.

UPDATE: lots of interesting pics of wind scorpions here…