Beech Tree News Network

There was a story on the news this week about a guy who set out to kill a spider that was crawling on his wall.  He used a can of spray paint and a lighter.  The combo created a blow torch effect, engulfing the wall in flames and burning the man’s house to the ground.  The man was not injured.  There’s no word on the spider.
    My initial reaction was, “What an idiot!”  On a much deeper level, though, I identified with the “hit it with everything you’ve got” mindset.  It is an all-or-nothing attitude my father carried with him throughout his life, and subsequently, passed on to his progeny.  My brother, Mark, puts on a fireworks show every 4th of July that rivals the one in Boston Harbor.  My nephew, Adam, didn’t just join the army, he became part of the 10th Mountain Division, the division that rooted out insurgents along the Afghan-Pakistani border.  And you know about my many escapades.
    Just this week, my niece texted me that she was thinking about asking a co-worker out on a date.  She wrote, “I thought we could take my brother’s truck, and put an air mattress with a bunch of pillows and blankets in the back then drive out to the middle of a field where I’ll have a projector and screen put up, so we can watch a movie under the stars.  What do you think?”
    Any other time, I would have said, “Yeah, that sounds great!  Do it,” but my niece just went through a very painful breakup, so I cautioned her instead.  “Don’t set the bar so high on a first date,” I texted back, “You will have no room for a WOW moment down the road.”
    She texted back, “I hate it when you say stuff that makes sense.”
    Me too.  It’s against my nature to go the sensible route.  Don’t get me wrong, more often than not, I do go the sensible route, but underneath, in the deep recesses of my psyche, I want to get a can of spray paint and a lighter and annihilate the little arachnid.
    My husband, Garey, is a pretty balanced person, but he must be drawn to people like me, because all his life, he’s had friends with over-the-top attitudes.  Once, when Garey and his dad were cutting hay with his friend, David, and David’s dad, they ran upon a bumble bee nest—those particular bees nest in the ground.  David’s dad sent him back to the house for pesticide.  On the way back to the field, David grabbed a can of gasoline for good measure. 
    David and his dad sprayed the perimeter of the infested area with the pesticide—paying no attention to the CAUTION! HIGHLY FLAMMABLE! on the side of the can.  David poured gasoline into the hole where the nest was located then struck the match.  It took two hours to contain the blaze, during which time, half of the hay field was burned beyond redemption, but the bumble bees were nowhere in sight.  Mission accomplished!     
    Here’s the deal with over-the-top people.  We might make a few missteps along the way, but we are the innovators in this world, because we’re willing to take chances.  Over-the-toppers came up with roller coasters, bungee jumping, the pocket hose, Perfect Polly, and the Wallet Ninja—all the stuff you just can’t live without.  It’s like my friend says, “If you’re not livin on the edge, you’re takin up too much room.”