I saved a grasshopper's life yesterday

Or at least prolonged it.

I found the little critter in the elevator “lobby” on the ground level at our multilevel parking facility. On the ground level as you walk in, to your left and right there is an elevator. In front, a large plate glass window (not quite so full of cobwebs as it had been).

There was this grasshopper (a big one–about 2" long) with his legs all tangled in cobwebs. He had gotten lost in the lobby, and had been frantically trying to fly “out” by flying up against the plate glass window, all the while, getting more and more wrapped up in cobwebs.

He wasn’t moving very quickly, since he was so encumbered, so I picked him up, pulled all the cobwebs away from his body, and set him on a bush well away from the elevators.

Good thing he didn’t bite me, or else my Good Samaritan efforts might have taken a much darker turn.

I, for one, thank you and think it was a nice thing to do. :slight_smile:

Um, Mjollnir, I see by your profile that you live in South Carolina, which is in the South.

You do know what kind of Southern-dwelling spider spins cobwebs, right?

Yet you actually invaded this creature’s web to release its prey.

This is beyond nice, it’s downright heroic.

Organic oatmeal and chocolate chip cookies and a really big glass of soy milk for Mjollnir

Wellfurcryinoutloud, what is it? I don’t have a handy-dandy book of Southern spiders here at the office (it’s at home)! Tell me so I’ll be forewarned (or cringe at something I already did)! Don’t keep the rest of us in suspense! :eek:

Damnit, don’t you read fables or go to movies? Does “A Bug’s Life” ring any bells? “The Ant and the Grasshopper”?

Grasshoppers are lazy. And mean.

The hammer of Thor strikes at the anvil of justice. Very heroic Mjollnir. Way to go.

I think agisofia is talking about the black widow spider. But mjollnir said it was in the window, and black widows tend to like dark places. So I doubt that was it.

It was still a nice gesture.

But, windows do get dark at night, and I very seldom see black widows out in the daytime, unless someone tries to steal their lunch…

I live in Vegas, where black widow spiders are almost as numerous as the drunken tourists we prey upon…

Love me, yes we love me…

Late last night I went to the kitchen and saw what looked like a roach on the floor. Just as I was about to terminate it, I realized it was a cricket. That split second realization saved its life. I put a bowl over it and this morning realeased it outside. That’s the difference between being a roach or a cricket :slight_smile:

People sometimes think I’m crazy for the efforts I will put into catching spiders, wasps, bumblebees, dragonflies, even a praying mantis once, alive indoors and releasing them outside unharmed. My favoured method is with a drinking glass and a sheet of paper or cardboard. I’m not a spiritual person but I believe I am gaining huge karma points by helping these little guys out. But…

The other day I was out on my deck and a cluster of wasps bounced off me and landed at my feet. It’s getting cold here and I don’t know what they were doing. There was about a dozen of them writhing in a dense cluster the size of a golfball. There was all kinds of things sticking out of their stinger ends. My first thoughts were compassionate, and I thought maybe there might be a queen wasp in there somewhere being gangbanged. My second thoughts were of the wasps that buzzed around me on the deck all summer. I picked up a piece of firewood, squashed the whole clusterfuck flat, pushed the mess between the boards, and never gave them another thought.

The subject heading alone made me think of the most beautiful comic strip I have ever seen-

It was an obscure comic, so I don’t remember what it was called.

A boy and a girl are walking on the beach, which is covered with starfish, drying up in the sun and dying.
The boy throws a starfish back into the water and triumphantly annouces that he saved its life.

The girl says “But look at all these starfish! You can’t possibly save them all!”

And the boy says “I saved THAT one, though.”

And then they start throwing handfuls and hadfuls of starfish back in the water.
Sighhhh…

What if by freeing the grasshopper, you condemned the spider to death by starvation?

Nah. There’s plenty of drunken tourists around. I’ll eat them. More meat than a grasshopper, and if they’ve been doing shots of Jaegermeister, you get the most phenomenal buzz. :wink:

(I hope SpiderWoman isn’t reading this thread.)