The other day I drew up the blind on one of my windows and jumped a little, because facing me, about eye level, was a hungry-looking reddish-black spider about the size of a silver dollar. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized the spider was on the other side of the glass. It had spun a web in between the ridges of the window frame and so it looked as though it was sitting right in the middle of the pane. Once I got over my initial startlement, I was fascinated, and kept stealing glances at it throughout the day as I worked at my desk next to the window.
That evening, when I started lowering the blind again, the spider got all panicky and started wriggling around as if it was scrambling to hide itself somewhere, in spite of being smack dab in the middle of a transparent web spun onto a transparent window pane. It didn’t realize that it, too, was safe on the other side of the glass and wasn’t going to get crushed or swept away by the blinds.
The next morning it was still there, and hadn’t moved when I got home in the evening. This time, when I lowered the blind, it stayed calm and collected. As the days went by and the spider was there most of the time, I kind of got used to it and even started to feel a certain affection for it. My little spidey buddy.
Now it’s gone! Poor little thing. I hope it just went to visit one of it’s spider pals. Maybe there is a spider happy hour or something tonight!
Therese Doucet 