Creatures

This afternoon Leighton pulled the drawers out of one of my plastic organizer things. They were empty, so I didn't care. In one drawer, he found a live spider. He called Eva over and she said, "Don't kill it, Mom. I want to look at it." So they sat there close (but not too close) to the spider and watched it, squealing occasionally when it crawled around.

The day went on and I still didn't kill the spider. The drawer sat here next to the computer and I checked several times to make sure it was still there, but didn't bother it. (I don't know why. Maybe extreme laziness.)

Just now, I got the baby to sleep and came to eat Wheat Thins and look at baby pictures of all 3 kids. (Andrew is gone.) I saw that the spider had started weaving a web in the bin, and I said, "No way. No webs in my house." Even though we are the Webbs. Only room for one kind around here.

I didn't want to smoosh him, and I didn't want to open the front door to set him free. Besides, he might make it back in my house before Andrew gets around to spraying for bugs. Spidercide. The next idea that popped into my head was to dump the offending spider down the kitchen sink. I carried the bin there and saw that the sink was full of dishes. This spider's death sentence was getting complicated. I filled up the corner he was in with water and tipped it a little to keep him submerged. I stood there for a bit watching him swim, wondering if spiders have lungs and if I could drown him. I realized that I was watching a spider suffer to its death and felt really bizarre and kind of sick. I could have just smashed him, but instead I was torturing him. I walked to the bathroom so he could go the way of all the earth the same way we've sent 4 goldfish, and suddenly the song "All Creatures of Our God and King" popped in my head. Talk about weird guilt. It took two attempts to get him to get out of the bin, but finally he fell in the toilet and I flushed him.

As I walked back to the computer to write down this odd story, I made a decision: spiders are not included in that hymn. All feelings of guilt: gone.