Joe the Spider

My husband is terrified of spiders. It's probably his biggest fear, right up there with flying and water and illness. When I worked in an office, I had a coworker who would bring me spiders, and I'd keep them at the office in a terrarium because there was no way I was going to torment my husband with arachnids.

A few weeks ago, I found a pretty good-sized spider in our house. Wasn't sure what it was, so I scooped it up in a jar and took it out to our flowerbed. In the process, I accidentally lopped off one of his legs.

Last night, when Hubby came home, Boo greeted him at the door with, "Daddy! Watch out for that spider by your head!" Sure enough, there was a pretty good-sized spider on the curtain, mere inches from my husband's noggin. He jumped away, I went to get a jar. I scooped up the spider and asked Boo if he wanted to accompany me to take it outside. He said, "Mommy, we can't take him outside! He's my friend, and his name is Joe!"

So off I went to the pet shop for a terrarium and some crickets. When I had spiders at work, I'd order lunch delivered from the BlackJack Pizza next door to the pet store and have them add a couple dozen small crickets to the order, so I rarely had to go out to pick up crickets. That pizzeria doesn't deliver to my area, and the pet shop closed down anyway. Looks like I'm going to be making a weekly trip.