I am sure I hate spiders. Really, it
is their fault. They move silently and ever so quickly, even though
they have no thoughts of eating us, no animosity toward us, and with
no real concern for us at all, they will if given the opportunity,
lay eggs in ear holes and under the skin. I think the ear-hole
thing is justification enough.
I am not a
Jainist who refuse to kill any living creature to the extent they
carry a little fine brush to scoot away insects. There are special
classes on how not slap a mosquito. It is about self-control and
prevention. Admirable but a little kooky. I am ok with killing
animals for food and even the existential killing of insects during
the production of food. Temple Grandin said it succinctly, “Humans
aren't as good as we should be in our capacity to empathize with
feelings and thoughts of others, be they humans or other animals on
Earth.” I do not like any method of killing
anything that is not quick and in our best effort, attempts to be
humane. After all we are human and we have a choice how we treat the
world and that includes our enemies.
I was inspecting the tennis court for
imperfections that could be easily corrected when I noticed a spider
just hanging out in the middle of the court. In Florida on a hot
day, a dry concrete surface is no place for any living thing and
especially insects. They can dry out in minutes. Since the spider
was in a bad spot for survival, I decided to flick the quarter-sized
creature off of the courts playing surface. To my horror, when I did
the flick, “she” landed off the playing surface safely but she
was carrying about 150 babies which I did not notice. They are
dispersed as the flicking was in progress. I literally gasped out
loud. What happened next further horrified me. Now, I am a grown
person and I tried to rationalize that they probably all would not
survive to adulthood anyway, blah, blah, and blah. I tried to get a
closer look at the babies which were mere specks. The mother turned
from what I now know was trying to round up her babies and charged at
me. She was defending her family at the risk of attacking a foe
several thousand times larger than her. That alone caught my
attention and my heart in a big way.
The person I was to play with on the
court just arrived and I said to him. “Can we play on the other
court and I am not going to tell you why we cannot use this court.
Maybe after a few beers I can tell you!” I felt flush and a little
weak and he said, “Ok, whatever.” With a brief glimpse back
over my shoulder toward the spider, I could see she was in the middle
of her baby roundup. All I could think of as I walked to the other
court was the screaming, scared babies looking for their mamma. For
warm-ups, I placed myself as far away from them as I could to avoid
hearing the screams. My playing partner was oblivious of course and
I felt like I had responsibility as an older person, I should explain
the empathy I felt for this living creature. My distorted pride
would not allow it and I was still in a mild state of shock. I had
to push the spider gathering out of my mind and concentrate on
tennis, specifically destroying this young person’s self-esteem by
losing to a man nearly 40 years his senior.
It may take more than a few drinks to
re-tell this story. That is why I wrote it down.
