Yes, I was unaware of it as well until I pulled out of my garage and happened to see a spider taking a comfortable position on my windshield wiper.
It seemed to like the wind blowing through its legs as we zoomed up the freeway ramp, and it got quite excited as we passed a few cars…it zoomed back and forth on the windshield wiper as if to urge me to go faster.
I could sense the disappointment when I pulled into the company garage, but that is the whole point of Bring Your Spider To Work Day…they have to learn life is not just hanging around a web all day waiting for food to come to you. Some people have to go and work to put flies on the table.
You should have told me earlier. I thought it was Drench A Goddamn Spider In Flammable Liquid And Set It Ablaze And Dance About The Corpse Singing Hallelujah day.
A few years ago, Bring a Spider To Work Day was celebrated thusly:
I was typing away at my computer, oblivious, when I saw a movement on my desk about 3" away from my elbow. I glanced down, and there was a HUGE HONKING RED AND BLACK HUNTING SPIDER. I’m not spider-phobic, but even I jumped and squawked. An attorney picked it up on a napkin and put it outside. Then I noticed traces of spiderweb on my desk, left by the spider, and followed the web like a trail. It led up over the top of the desk ledge and into the desk area of the neighboring secretary, who most definitely was spider-phobic. It led straight to her purse. She looked inside her purse and there was spiderweb inside it, too, which freaked her out royally. Then she remembered setting her purse on the ground that morning next to her mailbox, and also remembered to have occasionally seen hunting spiders near the mailbox in the past. The idea that she had been toting around a Shelob wannabe all day gave her the heebie-jeebies and she went to the ladies’ room to repeatedly wash her arms and face.
Huh. I got bit on the neck by a spider last night. I walked into some web going out the kitchen door. I was picking it off of me when I got a hold of a spider with a green belly portion (the bulbous part) and beige legs. Two little bumps came up on my neck that looked like mosquito bites. They stung slightly for a few minutes. No bumps today, and I’m not dead, as far as I can tell.
I had a pet 5-legged grasshopper on my car for a few days. I would drive really carefully so he wouldn’t fall off. I wonder what ever happened to ol’ Hopsy?
When I lived in Louisiana, it was often Take A Gecko Out for a Ride as a Hood Ornament day. They’d stand there on my hood with this look of sheer panic on their little lizard faces.
My Take a Spider to Work Day was a couple of months ago.
Came in at 8:45, earlier than everyone, and as I was turning on the lights, I saw a mall brownish spider hanging from a web in the middle of the office. Now I am normally completely unfreaked by spiders, so I just walked around it and ignored it. After all, they kill bugs! And it wasn’t going to bother me, right?
Before I go on, I should tell you, I adopt a very professional calm exterior at work. In reality I am a very girly-girl, but you’d never know it if you work with me.
So anyway. Fast forward two hours. I’m sitting calmly typing at my desk, and I seem to feel something tickling my neck. I turn my head just a smidge, and there is the fucking brown spider in my fucking hair. I scream, high-pitched, and loud, and two seconds later I am standing five feet away from my desk with no memory of covering the intervening ground.
I hear my boss, “What the hell was that?” And my coworker “I think it was **Anaamika ** screaming.” They come running out to see me doing a major icky dance because the goddamn thing was in my hair. Did I mention it was in my hair? Ugh. Creepy. Then my coworker spends the rest of the morning downloading pictures of spdiers from the Internet and e-mailing them to me, and not as attachments, so I can’t avoid looking at them.
And this is coming from the girl who gently caught a G-I-A-N-T dragonfly from my boss’s office and shooed it outside while everyone else left the room.
Yesterday at my house was Take a Shower With a Tiny Green Frog That Somehow Got Past All Four Cats Day. The guest of honor was given an escort to the back yard after the celebration.
Huh. And here I thought today was “Glance sleepily up into the corner of the shower, see a black spider and do the naked soap-covered “Ohmigod, is that a black widow” dance until you realize it isn’t but decide the spider must die for impersonating a black widow anyway” day.
There is a small gecko who, for some reason, likes to watch me bathe. I will be all nice & comfy with my book and maybe a cool drink, when I look up to see beady black eyes staring at me from a tiny green face. After the bath, he goes into an empty trashcan for the ride outside. I don’t know if it is the same one each time, but it has happened three times and if it keeps up I’m gonna have to start selling tickets.
