I hear several exclamations that may or may not have contained language unacceptable according to our rules of conduct, and I see a group of people, mostly children, jumping up and backing away from the children's computers. Any expletives uttered in the heat of the moment would decidedly have been forgivable, for from the jumble of conversation that has erupted I pick the words "huge spider." I think 'Well, okay, it's going to be one of these spiders about the size of my thumbnail, and I'll catch it with something and put it outside.' I had done that very thing with a spider found behind our circulation desk the day before. I wander over to the children's computer area and ask if anybody knows where it is. It is under the computer tables. It is the biggest spider I have ever seen in that building. Now, I've seen some pretty big spiders, both in the wild and in zoos and museums, but the largest arachnids our library usually houses are not all that impressive. This is a wolf spider. It is much bigger than the one that was living in my desk some time back. Its body is at least an inch long, and from front toe to back toe it is about as long as my thumb. "That's a big'un," I say. I tell everybody I'll be right back, and I quickly retrieve a clear container from the kitchen cupboard and a discarded headphone box. I tear off one side of the box, shoo the spider out from the tangle of cords under the tables, and swiftly bring the plastic cage down over it when it rushes out into the open. I carefully slide the cardstock under the container, pick it up and take it outside, letting it go near the back of the building where it has many choices of habitation and food. But not, of course, before showing it around.
Labels: awesome, big, fun, screaming, spider
