The Spider

The spider looked like a lentil with long stilt legs that would collapse and wrap around itself when I tried to wash it away the first time; when it scrunched up like that, it stayed out of the drain. My six-year-old walked in. I turned the water off.

I explained to her that we shouldn't kill the spider because it had proven it was worthy of life; it fought hard to live. But then I turned the water back on and splashed it repeatedly until the tiny lentil disappeared.

"Daddy, why'd you do that?"

I turned the water off and turned to look at my other kid, who was in the bubble bath behind me. I was on the tub's ledge; my ass hurt, and I felt bad about killing the spider. Then she said, "Daddy, the spiders are not dead."

I didn't think it was possible, I said, but when I looked in the sink, all the water was gone, and the spider was there, having somehow pulled itself from the cylindrical tunnel to hell. I was amazed. My daughter was excited. My son was standing up, dumping water from an empty bubble bath bottle all over himself.

I couldn't kill this spider. It had fought too hard. I felt the spider was worthier than us all. My daughter wanted to save it. We saved about 40% of the spiders we'd find. The problem was capturing the spider. There was no way to put a cup over it because it was on the uneven surface of the sink. I huffed and puffed. My daughter began looking for something to use. I paid attention to my son, but he didn't seem to notice. My daughter returned with a piece of drowning paper with a woman's face and a $40 hand-painted glass cup. I didn't know about the cost of the cup until my wife chastised us for using it to capture the spider after it crawled on the drawing paper that was now the cup's lid. The spider circled the cup in horror, trying to scale its way out. It was too slippery. We saw that it had fangs.

My wife entered and questioned it all. "Is he just chilling?" she said, referring to my son standing in the tub. I didn't answer before she focused on us and the cup. It wasn't supposed to be used. It was $40. It was for display. Because of how delicate the cup was, my wife was the one who had to carry the hand-painted glass with its drawing paper lid to the back porch to set the spider free. Good luck.