Made Me Jump

Yesterday I was lazily going about my routine to get ready in the morning when I pulled my tongue scraper (I'm a huge fan of the tongue scraper) out of the toothbrush holder and I out popped this huge, scary spider.

Okay, not really so scary, just surprising. It made me jump. Of course it's just a Daddy Longlegs, which is nothing but sort of a clumsy/elegant slow moving variety. But what was it doing in our bathroom?

When I sent the picture to Fred, he said that he thought it was a picture of a giant cockroach, which would have really upset him, as he cleans that room thoroughly on a regular basis. "No, it's spider," I said. His first question was, "Did you kill it?"

You don't kill spiders, especially not ones like this. If it was a scorpion, I would absolutely give it the shoe. But this was just some lost spider who was having problems finding the way out, hiding in our toothbrush holder. I eventually put him out on the balcony. Makes me wonder how many other creatures make their way from here to there in our apartment completely unnoticed.

The other day at school there was a bumble bee in the classroom and some girls freaking out. There was no way to begin class (and really, with that group, there is never a way to begin class - animals!) so I had some kid go down and get cup with which he led the bee to the window. I had just heard that bumble bees were the least likely of all bees to attack. You have to really provoke them. I kept telling the class that it was just lost. "Don't kill it," I kept saying. "It's not going to hurt you." It kept banging against the glass, not understanding the concept of glass vs. air.

I would probable attribute this behavior to my mother who was very big on letting insects (except for houseflies) out without harming them. Killing things unnecessarily sort of creeps me out.