Itsy Bitsy Spiders?

My husband sent me an email last week that did not contain a picture of a dead snake.  A coworker had found this spider on the ground outside of the school and took a picture of it, the email said.  I was confused.    Black Widows like dark, musty spaces where they can be left to their own devices.  Middle schools are not an ideal location, what with all the teenagers who like to run amok.

Also?  That spider is HUGE.  Like, Shelob-sized.  Surely someone would have noticed it hanging out?  A spider that big belongs in a dark corner of a pig sty, weaving the words "SOME PIG" in their web.

My husband's school is only a few years old, and it was built in the middle of nowhere, cow pastures and scrub all around.  Erecting a large building in the middle of nowhere causes much upheaval among the critters who live in such areas.  They don't understand what is happening, but they try to go on about their business anyway, and then they encounter people. Terrified, hysterical people who stomp first and ask questions later. 

Honestly, I am not even sure how our species managed to evolve from fierce hunters into these shrinking violets.  Take snakes, for instance.  Seeing a snake doesn't bother me in the least, because it isn't an evil cockroach plotting to take over the world.  Cockroaches are a perfectly appropriate thing to fear.  Snakes eat cockroaches, in fact.  So snakes are awesome.

Not everyone agrees.  

On the other hand, was this particular spider fake?  I looked at the picture again.  Nobody stomped on that spider.  It looked as though it had just died, perhaps of old age, in spider terms.  The legs looked kind of off to me.  But why would someone bring a fake Black Widow spider to a school and drop it at the door?  Did it fall out of someone's pocket?

I decided that I was overthinking the entire situation.  I do that.  Whether this spider is deceased or fake was irrelevant at this point. If it was real, I hope it died of natural causes, but whatever.  It's in spider heaven, snacking on freshly wrapped flies and spinning the most beautiful webs ever.

With Purpose

I was able to combine two prompts.  Yay me! This is fiction.

Josiah had always had an affinity for spiders.  His earliest memory was of watching a spider busily creating an intricate web in the corner of his crib.  That spider had been his only companion that day.  His mother, hardened by alcoholism and the family's extreme poverty, would loudly berate Josiah's always unemployed father for his idle ways as the two sat on the porch and got drunk.  In their need to escape, they often neglected Josiah, who would sit quietly in the corner and watch the spiders until they remembered him.  But Josiah wasn't lonely; he had the spiders for company.  Spiders were never idle. They were purposeful, and that resonated within him, and gave him comfort when nothing else about his meager life could.  He whispered his thoughts to the spiders in the darkness and was content. 

And now, at 97 years of age, Josiah still liked to watch the eight legged denizens of the world spin their creations, building in any available open space, like the corners of his basement.  He had been there watching a beautiful gray house spider last night,  when his heart seemed to seize up in his chest, and he fell, hitting his head against the cinderblock wall.  Since Josiah lived alone, nobody had come to find him fallen and unconscious on the cold basement floor, and nobody was coming to help him now. His heart was racing erratically, his brittle bones vibrating with each pulse, his breathing labored. He was too weak to pull himself into a sitting position, or to get himself up the stairs to the phone to call for help. 

He embraced the idea of dying as if it were a close friend returning from a long trip, and he held it close.  Josiah lay on the floor of his basement and stared up at the unmade ceiling, hoping to see a spider or two for company.The early sunlight peered into the small windows and hit the strands of a web, and he could see the large gray house spider from last night, staring at him as he lay helpless.  She wasn't alone, he realized. Everywhere he looked, he could make out the gleam of tiny eyes.  It seemed to Josiah that there were millions of spiders staring down at him from the rafters, waiting. He coughed, and his heart seized again. It wouldn't be long now, before it would stop beating altogether, and he was not sorry. He just kept watching the spiders.

The spiders began to crawl down from the rafters, and Josiah watched them flow gracefully down the walls toward him.  He wasn't afraid, he was mesmerized at their approach, and when they began to crawl up his legs and arms and over his torso and head, he wasn't afraid.  He felt somehow blessed, and comforted by their presence.  Josiah breathed his last while in their moving embrace, and the spiders, with a new purpose, covered their brother with a gossamer burial shroud and mourned.



The word for today is the third definition is idle.



For this week, your inspiration comes from two words (you are not required to use these words, though you may):
Gossamer: noun; a fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders, which is seen esp. in autumn.
Affinity: noun; ( pl. affinities ) (often affinity between/for/with) a spontaneous or natural liking or sympathy for someone or something: he has an affinity for the music of Berlioz.

It's Not Quite Halloween, But...

After a long day at work, we arrived home with Zane, and I get to fix dinner. Yay me. I had decided on trying a chicken parm recipe that I found, so I got started making that. The recipe called for dipping the chicken in egg and then into bread crumbs. Okay, I thought that I might be able to do that! There were three eggs in a container in the fridge. When I grabbed the container, one of the eggs started to slide out, and I tried to catch it. And I did catch the egg. Unfortunately, in my haste to catch the one egg, the other two slid out of the container. Which was kind of odd, since my thighs will silently attest that I don’t usually drop food. Damn, I thought to myself.

After getting the chicken into the oven, I was working on cleaning up the kitchen, getting some pasta on the stove, garlic bread in the oven, and Zane something to eat. Multi-tasking. Larry was in the living room, drooling over his new Aliens box set or something equally geek-ish. I was standing next to the island in the kitchen and I noticed movement on the floor. I looked down. Right next to my foot was a LARGE spider. EEEEEEEK!!

I am not afraid of spiders. I don’t like bugs/spiders/geckos in the house, but usually when I find them I catch them in a cup and toss them outside. I am not afraid of spiders, but I also didn’t expect to see one the size of a quarter right next to my bare foot in my own kitchen. I also didn’t expect to see dozens of baby spiders all over the floor next to the big spider. EEEEEEK!!!! I jumped and did what any normal, red-blooded woman would do in these situations. I hollered for my husband.

“Larry, come in here now!”

“What?” Larry called from the living room.

“It’s a big spider!” I called back.

“Itsy-bitsy spider?” Zane said from his spot at the table. He loves to hear about spiders, but they are all “itsy-bitsy” to him. Even Spiderman is “Itsy-bitsy Spiderman” right now.

“Uh, yes, Zane. It’s an itsy-bitsy spider,” I said, trying to appear calm for him, even though my heart was racing. It was a BIG spider, and while I am not afraid of spiders I was imagining that it had been about to climb onto my big toe. That gave me a roaring case of the heebie-jeebies.

“A big spider, eh?” From the tone of his voice, Larry was rolling his eyes as he walked into the kitchen. Then HE saw the spider, and while he didn’t actually jump, I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to. Then I pointed out the baby spiders, and he was incredulous and had to see for himself.

“That’s kind of creepy,” he said. I had to agree. We both just stood there looking at the spiders, completely paralyzed with the OMG moment. Zane was still at the table where he had been eating, staring at his parents in confusion and starting to look worried.

Zena, our new kitten, jumped in to save the day. She was just ecstatic to have a new moving play toy to whack around, and she smacked that spider to the other side of the kitchen. In short order, the big spider was a deceased spider. In the meantime, Larry had recovered from his trance, and grabbed the vacuum cleaner. He vacuumed up all the little spiders.

“Should I be concerned that when I emptied the case into the trash, I couldn’t see any spiders?” he asked a couple of minutes later. I made him put the vacuum on the patio. Just in case. The thought that dozens of baby spiders might climb out of the vacuum was too frightful to contemplate for long. Crisis averted, we reassured Zane that all was well.

“It’s all right, Zane, your Mom was just scared of an itsy-bitsy spider,” Larry told him. So I smacked him with a frying pan. At least I thought about it. Because I am not afraid of spiders.