In memoriam

Tonight we remember Shelob the spider.  She lived on our front window screen for at least four months, serving as our constant companion.  Shelob was an enormous nocturnal orb-weaving spider.  She rarely moved during the day, but her very presence was terrifying enough that I would warn the babysitters so their screams wouldn’t wake the baby.  James had his first semester of science watching Shelob from his bouncer.

A nocturnal orb weaver.  This is about the true size of Shelob.

We watched Shelob spin webs, catch huge insects, wrap them up, and suck their guts out (yum).  We watched her hang lazily from her silk, gazing at the bushes in front of the window and the cars going by.  We even got extra lucky one day and watched Shelob dance the dance of spider lovin’ with a very fortunate male orb-weaving spider.  I watched with rapt attention until James insisted on a nap, returning to see Shelob consuming her lover.  Guess he wasn’t so fortunate after all.  What a woman.

I don’t know why Shelob left us.  Maybe she finally realized that there was a rip in the bottom of the screen and she had lived her entire life behind bars needlessly.  Maybe she was killed by an even bigger insect (which is terrifying, because she was at least as big as a silver dollar).  Perhaps she just passed on to that great eternal web in the sky.  We will never know.  But we do know this: Shelob will be missed.

Vhv

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James thinks so too.  Most moms don’t imagine their child’s first pet will be an enormous spider, but sometimes you just can’t predict these things…