Oblivion_ stories - By David Foster Wallace Page 0,97

of required for this unique but common specimen to subdue its prey. Science is often confounded by both the luminous widow and the more average-looking recluse. Plus the ones who say they will really get down in the dirt of the trench and really fight for you are sleazeballs such as this supposed Van Nuys negligence specialist Mother has lined up. From another context the hysteria would have almost been humorous as any environs as unkempt as our surrounding neighborhood will already be naturally infested with them in all the clutter and run-down homes. Clutter’s abundant shelter being their native element. Specimens of widely varied size and aggression are to be found in basement corners, beneath shelves of sheds, garages and linen closets, behind large appliances and in the innumerable crevices of cast-away litter and unkempt weeds. Widows in particular favoring ill-lit right angles for their web’s construction. In the right angles of most structures’ shaded sides up under the eaves for example in summer months. If you know what to look for. Hence the clear goggles and polyurethane gloves are indispensable even in the shower stall whose right angles can be infested in just so many few absent hours. Widows being long noted as industrious weavers. Or outside the moving bus in the palm trees they stand so naively beneath in the shade to await their buses, Rent a ladder and carefully examine the undersides of those fronds sometime! one is tempted to shout through the window. Once conditioned to know what to look for they are often observable everywhere hiding in plain sight. Patience being another hallmark. This habitat and also further inland both contain the more exotic variety of red widow whose ventral hourglass is brown or tan as well as one of the hemisphere’s two smaller brown or gray species in the further-inland desert regions which prefer arid climes. The red widow’s red lacking however the spellbinding lustre of the familiar household black variety, it is more a dull or dullish red, and they are rare and both specimens escaped in his mishap and have not been reacquired. Here as so often in the arthropod realm the female dominates as well. To be frank Mother’s pain and suffering appeared somewhat inflated in the original product liability claim and in reality she coughs less than during her own deposition. Far be it from me to deny her however due to the thickness of blood. Sitting at home in dark glasses as ever knitting while monitoring my activities her mouth parts working idly. Scientifically however a large mammal would have to inhale a great deal of trans-d allethrin for permanent damage to result which as predicted did impact the modesty of her settlement. The true facts are less than a centimeter either way is the difference between smooth youthful eyes and the chronic expression of Vivian Leigh in the shower in the 1960 classic of that name. The briefcase is aerated at select tiny points in each corner and 2.5 dozen polystyrene chocks distributed throughout the interior can protect the contents from jostling or trauma. Her new case’s complexity is exactly how to distribute the liability claim between the original surgeon whose negligence gave her the frightened eyes and forehead and the second whose repair’s callous butchery left her with a chronic mask of crazed suffering and terror that now can fortunately only possibly cause incidents in the case of someone in the opposing lateral seat. Directly behind the driver. Because the sole exposure to liability of Mother’s placement here is that any such individual in the opposing seat hence will have the vantage of gazing frontally at us throughout the ride. And on select occasions such a specimen will, if predisposed by environmental conditioning or instinctive temperament, appear to assume that the stimulus causing her expression is me. That with my size and distinctive mark that I have kidnapped this horror-stricken middle-aged female or behaved in a somehow threatening manner toward her saying, Ma’am is there some problem or, Why don’t you just leave the lady alone as she sinks lower in her knitted scarf in self-discomfort over their reaction but my own evolved response is to calmly smile and raise my gloves in puzzled bemusement as if to say, Why who knows for certain why anyone wears the face they do my good fellow let us not leap to conclusions based on incomplete data! Her original liability was that a worker at the assembly plant actually