If I were to ask anyone, “Which do you consider to be more dangerous, a spider or an earthquake?” they would most probably answer, “An earthquake.” Then they would avoid any further conversation with me because only a loopy person would ask such a silly question.

Yesterday, my ten-year old daughter, (the bug-loving, future herpetologist), found a dead spider. (I believe it was the one I had previously dispatched of with a fly swatter.) She came waltzing into the kitchen with the spider carefully tied onto the end of a thin string. “It’s a dead Jumping Spider!” she happily announces. Even though it is dead and all curled up, she can still indentify one of her beloved arachnids.

Later, as I head upstairs, I see her on a chair in her big sister’s room, the string in her hand, reaching up to the top of the door frame. “What are you up to?” I ask. She explains that she is doing something fun with the spider. Hmm. Fun for her; maybe not so fun for her sister. Still, practical jokes are an old family tradition, so I let her be.

Later, sister Laura gets home and heads up to her room. We hear a shriek and Elsa giggles triumphantly. Big sister pummels little sister who is still laughing, but she is forced to remove her offending critter from the doorway. It later appears inside her sister’s computer. Another pounding. This time the spider has to go.

Spiders are anathema to my fifteen year old. Even if the spider is the size of an ant, the reaction is always the same; revulsion, fear and an inability to deal with this unspeakable danger. She simply cannot abide spiders.

About an hour after the spider incident, an earthquake struck. The house shivered and rolled a bit and then it stopped. “Earthquakes are fun,” muses Laura. “I like to sit on my bed and feel them rolling me around.” I’m thinking, “Um, earthquakes are much more dangerous than spiders,” but I know it’s useless to point out such an obvious thing to a teen who is terrified off her tuffet whenever she sees eight legs.