There’s a banana spider living outside of our office window.
We’ve named it Aragogette, after Aragog from the Harry Potter books. The suffix has been added for obvious reasons.
I know that it’s probably a mistake to name a living thing, because I always inevitably end up attached to the named thing. Working at this office affords many opportunities to get attached to animals. For example, there is a rather large armadillo that often meanders around the quad. Naomi has named him Fitzwilliam. And I have dubbed a rather dashing grey fox that is seen skulking about on campus to be Wentworth (And bravo to you Jane Austen fans, as you’ve undoubtedly picked up on a pattern here…) Also, there was a family of four sandhill cranes that used to stalk the fields, named Harv and Marv by Karen. Carrie and I named their two babies (never figured out what a baby crane is called) Stuff and Nonsense, but then we’re pretty sure a gator got a hold of either Stuff or Nonsense, since the family was reduced to three. Unfortunately, the name just doesn’t sound as great with either Stuff or Nonsense missing. Plus we’re not even sure which one got nabbed by the gator.
In short, we get rather attached to the wildlife that we see here at work. It’s kind of pathetic, until I think this is probably something Jim and Pam would do at their workplace and suddenly I don’t feel like such a loser;)
After consulting Wikipedia, I was pretty sure that the spider was a female, because she seemed a lot larger than the other dozen spiders we’ve seen hanging onto webs between the trees that line the sidewalk leading from the parking lot to the office entranceway.
And that suspicion was confirmed when I arrived at work today to see that Aragogette’s egg sac tucked away in the corner of the building.
I sure hope she makes it, because yesterday the maintenance guy Pedro was power washing the windows and he came awfully close to Aragogette’s stomping grounds. Five windows away.
I never thought I would actually be on a spider’s side.
But I guess I am!
Oh and in case you haven’t heard about the sprawling, hundreds of yards-long and wide communal spider web in
Sorry if you don’t like spiders. They still creep me out. I am pretty sure I hate them.
Just not Aragogette.
And maybe Charlotte too...
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2 comments:
I think this post needs an update:
*SQUISH* *CRUNCH*
Thus were the sounds of the soggy arachnid known formerly as Aragogette. Her demise was inevitable since the power-window washer started his job a few short weeks ago. We all saw this day approaching. But none of us would have guessed her life would be snuffed in such a dramatic fashion. Alas, she no longer lives to protect her egg-sac... and the lives of her babies lay in the balance as they sit cocooned in their water-logged, web-spun home on the pavement waiting for their hero to come gently take them to the bushes...
Haha...even Charlotte kinda freaked me out! We had a massive huntsman spider in here the other day (I haven't seen one this big in a while, I've seen bigger, but it still freaked me out - was about half a handspan?) and even though I've been told a million times that they only produce a mozzie bite type reaction I freaked and told my workmate to squash it with his thong. He decided it was more humane to SPRAY IT! How cruel is that?! Watch it die while its little legs twitch and it spasms like it's under the Cruciatus Curse (I think that's the right one? Like the poor spider in the movie...). Poor fella was sprayed and then scooped up and taken outside to twitch to death on the grass.
That's my spider story for the day :)
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