Trick or treat!

Halloween is finally here and we all have one evening to get it over quick before the count down to Christmas. I gave in yet again and got talked into hosting a Halloween party. We stocked up on sweets, lit our pumpkins, dressed up the little horrors and dusted down the Monster Munch CD. As darkness fell the doorbell rang and I was confronted by an assortment of ghosts and ghouls. One daring ghost called out "trick or treat!" He was quickly shushed by the others, and much to my amusement, the whisper was, " she keeps loads of cockroaches, theres NOTHING that can frighten her, go for a treat..." Obviously the fact that I keep a house full of cockroaches did not put them off my chocolate offerings and they all dived into my cauldron of Crunchies, Mars Bars and Chocolate Buttons with relish. After my new found friends had gone, happily munching on their treats, I was left wondering why we still have such a deep rooted fear of insects. It is quite normal to posses a reasonable fear of creatures we do not easily recognize and this has kept us safe since we came down from the trees, but it is healthy to keep that fear in check. Remember, before you bash the living daylights out of something scuttling across your living room floor, perhaps you could instead catch it in a jar, admire it, look it up in a book or on the internet and then pop it out of the front door ..........