Along Came A Spider: The Ambiguities of Murder in the Insect World

I guess he'd been hanging out in our kitchen for a while.  When I reached for a glass I saw the tiny spider spinning down from the ceiling on his gossamer thread.   The movement of the cabinet door set him moving to and fro unpleasantly close to my face.

         "You're cute, but you can't live here.  This kitchen is a No-Spiders Zone."   I thought I should explain our policies before ousting the intruder.

         The spider just hung there so I added:  "In fact, the whole house is."

          Since he still made no move to leave I reached as high as I could above the spider, caught the silk between my thumb and forefinger, and started toward the back door. 

            He began a mad dash up the string toward my hand. 

            'Yikes!  Me no like creepy crawly things on me!',  I thought.  (I don't know why, but in situations involving Woman-versus-Slithery or Creepy creatures I revert to Caveperson-speak.  I guess survival instincts cancel out language skills.)

         I calculate that I can make it to the back door before the spider makes it to my hand so I hang on to the web and keep moving.  But, the motion disturbs the spider enough that he lets go in a free-fall to the floor. 

         I don't see where he lands.

         '*** AH OOO GUH!  AH OOOOO GUH!!! ***'

         Loud sirens go off in my head: 'Code Red!  Spider on the loose!  This is not a test!  Repeat:  This is not a test!! AH OOO GUH!!!'

         So I go into a wild dance; arms and legs flail, I swipe at my lower legs and shoes, trying to get rid of any potential intruders.   

          Then I see him.  (I know I keep saying 'him'...but, truthfully, I have no idea what gender the spider is.) The tiny spider is scuttling across the kitchen floor. 

            I'm still rattled from my recent brush with death. (Okay, yeah, he's only about a millimeter across...still... )

        They do bite, you know.

         Anyway, because of my recent trauma, I give serious thought to squashing him.  I could certainly justify it to myself as self-defense.

         But something about the way he's bravely scurrying across the floor, in spite of his recent fall, makes me rethink my arachinicidal thoughts.  Instead I open the back door, grab a glue stick that's sitting on the island and offer him a lift outside.  He refuses to climb on. 

          "Listen, Spider, don't push your luck!  I've killed before.  I could do it again."  I see a piece of mail on the kitchen table and offer him that.  He crawls right on.  (Note to Self:  Threats work with spiders.)

         I carefully walk him out the back door, turning the paper as he moves to avoid him getting on my fingers, and shake him into the fiddle leaf ferns. 

         "Fare well little spider.  Live long and prosper."

I'm feeling pretty good about my spider saving benevolence.  But, then it occurs to me I should probably be a bit sterner.  I don't want to be overrun by freeloading spiders.

        "But don't come back inside!  Tell all your friends about the compassion I showed you."  (I hope to buy peace, harmony, and a 'No-Biting-Susans' policy in our backyard.)  "But you and your kind may not come into our home."

         As a pest control plan this lacks a lot. 

         Not only is it time consuming, but I'm allowing the enemy to live, thus giving them the opportunity to increase in numbers. 

         Sometimes I do just kill them.  But I always feel bad about it.

         It's not just because of that whole 'Thou shalt not kill." thing.  I mean, I'm not a vegetarian, so obviously, creatures have died because of me before.

         It's more because of that scene from one of the Douglas Adams "Hitchhiker..." books.  The main character encounters this monster in a cave.  The monster has created a shrine of hate to this man.  It turns out the man has killed the monster in more than one of the monster's previous lives.     (The monster had been a fly landing on the guy's shirt, a mosquito trying to suck his blood, a steak he'd eaten...)  Just by coincidence the man had killed the monster about a hundred times. 

          This man meant no harm.  He had no idea that he kept murdering the same reincarnated being over and over.  But this did not keep the monster from holding a pretty healthy grudge.

         I'm not sure little creatures have the conscience to know who's killing them, and I'm not sure if they can reincarnate...

         I just know I don't want to encounter a monster in a cave with an ax to grind.

        

---

          Here's another brush with the insect kingdom that didn't end so well. 

           I was sitting in the hot tub and flicked an ant off of the edge of the tub.  My intent was for it to enjoy a startling, but brief, flight and then begin the rest of its life somewhere else.  Hopefully, somewhere where biting me was less of an option.

          Instead, I miscalculated, caught the side of the ant between my fingernail and the plastic of the tub, and smashed the legs on its left side. 

           I tried to get it upright, hoping I was wrong.  But no, I had made it a trio-plegic. 

         It would never walk again.  There are no prosthetics I could provide for this little ant.  I could not get it rebuilt to be the 6 million dollar ant.   I had to accept that it would die a slow death by starvation.  Probably other ants would eat it.  I saved it that fate, ending it quickly by smashing him with my thumb. 

          I have killed again...and I feel bad about it.

         I've seen 'A Bug's Life'.   I knew there was a sweetheart waiting back at the anthill for him to come home. 

          She would be waiting forever.

          And it's all my fault.