I explained to Micah that we don’t want to hurt the spider he saw in our basement *(see footnote for further explanation) because he helps us out by eating other bugs. Micah then explained it back to me from an angle that I had never before considered, “Yeah, so we don’t have to eat ‘em.”
*footnote: OK, I am still basically like any other normal red-blooded female in that I kind of freak out (at times, complete the full-fledged arm-waving and screeching/squealing sound that all males detest) at the sight of a spider, especially when it is in my own personal dwelling. To be more specific, especially when I am naked and defenseless in the shower, without my glasses on, and therefore unable to tell exactly how scary the spider is, or for that matter, if it even IS a spider at all. I usually just have to whisper frantically (I can’t yell, cuz I shower at night and don’t want to wake the kids) for Randy to come and save me.
Anyway, but my brother-in-law Harold has a deep love and respect for all living things and though he has not yet been able to convince me to feel bad for all the bugs that fly into and then die upon on my windshield as I drive, he has caused both Randy and me to feel a little uneasy about flippantly squishing bugs who probably mean no harm and can’t help it that they’re hideously ugly. So in most cases, we resort to getting “the cup” from Randy’s bottom dresser drawer (a plastic cup that has some sort of stiff paper inside it, both of which are necessary to escort a bug found indoors, back to where it belongs outdoors) and hope that once outside, the bug does not become outraged enough at the eviction that it brings back colonies of its friends to invade our home in mass force. But Randy (and sheer laziness on my part, frankly) has gotten me to the point where I am willing to grant an indoor-living-permit to certain spiders. The qualifications for such a permit include, but are not limited to: not being horrendously frightening looking, or overly large, or too hairy; not being located at eyeball level in a primary living/sleeping space; and not moving swiftly, or really at all. In other words, if a spider is squatting in a corner of the basement, minding his own business and ridding our house of other bugs, he’s in. But if I happen to have the vacuum out down there and he seems to be acting slightly rebellious (or I’m just in the kind of mood where I just “want things CLEAN for crying out loud”), he’s gone.
WHAT?!???! Two posts in one month, Let alone the same week. This is GREAT!!!
I’m trying to point out the helpfulness of all the different insects to the boys. Except ants and wasps. Ants I tell them to smoosh and wasps we just stay away from. (I accidently typed “aunts” at first–but we don’t encourage smooshing of any of their aunts, I promise!)