Spidey Returns

A couple of posts back I wrote about a spider who spent the better part of an hour exploring my bedroom ceiling ("Spider Eyes" - 01/21). Last night, while I was cooking supper, my younger son, Mark, opened the refrigerator door and said, "Dad, there's a spider in the fridge."

I came to look. "Where?"

"In the back, between the milk and cranberry juice."

Yep. There it was, immobilized by the sudden flash of the refrigerator's light bulb. Although I had no idea, really, the romantic in me immediately assumed it was the same spider that had inspired my recent post. Because my hands were covered with beef fat (I was in the middle of patting out four huge lumps of ground beef that were soon to be the famous "Daddy Burgers" that Mark and I traditionally consume on Friday nights), I made a brief mental note to "do something" about the spider first chance I got.

Commercial break: Since bloggers I know have gotten into the habit of sharing recipes, especially for comfort food, here's mine for "Daddy Burgers":

Whole wheat buns
Ground beef (form into thick, bigger-than-bun patties)
Sharp cheddar cheese (five slices off the end of the brick per patty)

Cook briefly, flipping once, in George Foreman grill, then arrange cheese slices on meat in whatever patterns happen to suit the cook's whim of the moment. Microwave until cheese drools all over. Place on buns, add salt. Eat.

Yeah ... that's it. It's a guy thing, okay?

And now, back to our story: Anyway, I got distracted. I cooked. We ate. I remembered suddenly that I had an brief appointment to go to that evening. I returned tired and went to bed.

When I woke this morning and stared up at the ceiling for a few minutes before crawling out from under the covers into the cold of my room ... I remembered.

The spider was still there, down in the corner behind the cranberry juice. I don't really know much about arachnids, but even I could tell it didn't look too good. The legs on the right side of its body were extended, but those on the left were sort of curled inward. And the spider's soft blackish grey color had faded to a sort of mottled, spotted beige.

Sheesh. How did you get in there, anyway. I chided, in my head. I immediately had this mental image of the spider shinnying down from the kitchen ceiling just as I opened the fridge door, and then getting trapped inside as I shut it. Oh, so it's my fault, I muttered mentally, suffering a wave of guilt. He could have been in there all night, in the cold and dark.

I know. I know. You arachnophobes out there are rolling your eyes. But you have to understand my situation. My oldest son, Tony, who is tough and fearless in many ways, is an arachnophobe of gigantic proportions. (You didn't sing "Itsy, bitsy spider, up the water pout," to this kid.) Worse, underneath that tough exterior beats the heart of a small child for whom the movie Bambi crystallized a life-long animal rights ethic. I kid you not. If a puppy and a mere adult human were both about to be struck down by a Mack truck and he could only save one? He would save the puppy, no contest. Although spiders scared him to the point of panic when young, he couldn't bear the thought that I would kill one.

When he was five years old, for instance, I once came home from work to what appeared to be an empty house. After Hullo-ing a few times, I heard a muffled, "We're in here." I found Tony and his mother locked away in a bedroom. "There's a spider in the living room," she said. "You have to get it," (By "get it," of course, his Mom intended some form of swift execution.) "But don't kill him," said a worried Tony. I adopted my best Joe Friday manner, asking where in the living room. How big is it. "Big," she said. "Really big," said Tony, eyes wide. Turns out they had been hiding away all afternoon. That spider could be long gone. So I had my work cut out for me.

Yeah, I know what you're thinking: Make some noise. Shout out dramatically, "Aha, there you are," open and close the front door and declare an "all clear." That's what you'd do. But these two were way too smart for that. They needed proof. The procedure was that I had to find and then trap the spider, show them that I had it, and then my son would follow me out to the front door and watch me set it free outside.

For years, I kept a small drinking glass and an old 3x5 card on the window sill in the kitchen for such emergencies. The glass had become the designated spider-trapping equipment when I inadvertently used it, one time, instead of a paper cup. After disposing of the spider, I placed the cup in the dishwasher only to be told by Tony's Mom that a glass that had touched a spider was never going to touch lips again, hers or anyone else's. Because it was transparent, it worked well. Tony could view the spider safely and it made my job easier. I took said equipment that day, dutifully searched for and finally found a rather smallish spider (God knows if it was the right one) and followed procedure.

Tony, now 20, is still wary of spiders (he won't admit to be scared.) On the other hand, Mark, who came along the following year, will suffer no qualms this morning. Spider in the fridge? Sucks for him. He thinks we're all idiots and finds the whole business hilarious.

So as I gazed at the spider curled up against the cold in the back corner of my fridge this morning, my training kicked in. I found a folded sheet of paper, and hoping to coax the spider out of the corner so I could trap him, went to work. As soon as the edge of the paper contacted his legs, he curled up into a ball, and rolled into its center. I wouldn't need a designated glass for this one. I gingerly bore the victim to my apartment door, and carefully rolled him off in the hallway, where the carpet met the wall. There the spider sat, immobile, still curled up. Not moving. I actually got down on my knees and breathed on him, to try to warm him up. Nothing

Bummer, I thought. Too late. Rest in peace, pal.

I came in and closed the door, but after a few minutes I couldn't resist having another look. Spidey was still there, backed tightly into the crevice between carpet and wall, but the legs on his right side were almost fully extended. Not dead. But not moving, either.

I came back out a second time a few minutes later. Still there, but this time, all eight legs were fully extended.

A few minutes ago, I took another look and ... gone! I looked along the wall, over the carpet, on the ceiling. Nowhere in sight. Awesome. I'll be able to look Tony in the eye.

And I thought of Psalm 139, hands down, my absolute favorite:

O Lord, You have searched me and You know me
You know when I sit down and when I rise
You perceive my thoughts for afar
You discern my going out and my lying down
You are familiar with all my ways

You hem me in -- behind and before ...
You have laid your hand upon me
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me ...

Where can I go from Your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your Presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there
If I make my bed in the depths, you are there
If I rise on the wings of the dawn
If I settle on the far side of the sea
Even there you right hand will hold me fast
If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me
And the light become night around me"
Even the darkness will not be dark to you
For darkness is as light to you
For you created my inmost being
You knit me in my mother's womb
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made ...

All the days ordained for me
Were written in Your book
before one of them came to be.

How unlike us is God. The Creator of the unsearchably vast Universe -- in comparison to whom we are far smaller than the itsy-est, bitsy-est spider -- always knows where and how we are. He never gets too busy and forgets. Though we enter this world stained with the sin of a thousand generations, God has no phobic fear of contact. He needs no glass and 3x5. And no matter how far we stray from the web of his care, he searches us out, casts light on our shadows, rescues us and breathes on us the Breath of Life.