life in a jar.
When I was in the sixth grade, we were given a peculiar assignment.
- Catch a spider.
- Put it in a jar.
- Make it comfortable (grass and twigs, holes in the jar lid, yummy flies to eat).
- Bring it to school.
- Show it to the class.
- Write a journal for it.
- Hand in journal.
- Release spider to the wild once more.
I don't think People for the Ethical Treatment of Spiders would be too impressed, but that's what we had to do.
And truly, it sounds like a bit of a giveaway project -- I mean, how much more easy could anything be? That is, unless you have a morbid fear of spiders.
Did I mention I have a morbid fear of spiders?
Yeah.
I should clarify: I know spiders have an important purpose in any ecological system in which they are present. I know spiders are helpful, amazing little creatures who create beautiful webs and use their strong little bodies to confidently hold their place in the food chain. I get it, I do.
But I would honestly rather they conduct their activities as far from me as arachnically possible.
Still, it was a school project, and I am a bigger nerd than I am a fraidy cat, so I went looking for a spider to call my own. My mother gave me a mayonnaise jar with a pre-punched lid that would make a spacious home. I put in some grass, some twigs, a couple leaves and a rock; to my biosphere-ignorant sensibilities, these seemed suitable enough environs for my new pet.
All my other classmates seemed to have found their spiders out in their gardens, hanging from lacy webs or lurking on rosebush leaves. And -- I have to admit -- their spiders were kind of cute! They had delicate little legs that seemed to be wearing paisleyed or leopard-printed pants. Their bellies were round like pennies and fat like bubbles. They had lots of eyes, but no apparent pinchers or claws or implements of destruction.
Alas, there were no such spiders in my garden.
However, in the basement of our home, we found me a spider rather quickly. And he was about as different from the description above as a grandma is from a serial killer.
My spider was a wolf spider -- the name alone should tip you off to how large and hairy the thing was -- and I could barely stand to look at it. His legs were long and strong, it's body was large and lean and pattern-less, and it had jaws the size of Anthony Robbins' chompers. It looked like a daddy longlegs on steroids and PCP.
But it was mine, all mine.
Wolfie dwarfed the jar, but I was loathe to move him to a new location. How did I know he wouldn't escape during the prisoner transport and end up in my underwear drawer?
We fed him some flies that we found buzzing dizzily against a window in the living room, and gave him some privacy to enjoy his bounty. But for whatever reason -- a lack of challenge? the wrong variety of fly? depression? -- Wolfie did not eat. As much as I was terrified of my pet, I was concerned for him, too. Or perhaps I was just looking out for my grades -- hard to say. I went in search of other bugs my spider might enjoy, but no matter what I offered, the gifts were ignored. They buzzed against the glass and crawled through his habitat like the dazed, affable occupants of a small-town drunk tank.
I had to come to terms with the fact that Wolfie might be on a hunger strike. Maybe I would have to let him go, but sure as hell not before I found a replacement. And, in a stroke of luck, I actually did: a fat-bottomed pinky-beige spider materialized in the carport, and I scooped her into Wolfie's jar with glee.
I even named it: Diana, after the Princess. I know -- what can I say? It was the sixth grade.
It was time to let Wolfie go, but I wasn't sure how to get him out without losing Diana, who was gamely chasing one of the flies around the jar like a Shriner in a buffet line.
So I left him there. Overnight.
You know what happened.
The next morning, Diana was no more -- some of her skeletal remains were still there, but she had given up the ghost somewhere in the wee hours. Wolfie was slightly more fat, negligibly more hairy, and resting comfortably on his rock.
Gah! I had a cannibal!
This was the big buzz at school the next morning, since no one else had thought to try spider cohabitation. We gathered around my jar, peering disdainfully at Wolfie like reporters at a celebrity trial, marveling at how vicious and heartless he must be to have consumed his roommate in such short order. But -- also like reporters at a celebrity trial -- we were more hungry for a new story than for justice.
Thus began the search to find spiders to sacrifice to Wolfie. And Wolfie obliged us with suitable carnage each time we dropped in another unwitting arachnovictim. We were engrossed and horrified by the whole spectacle, but certainly not horrified enough to stop.
Once my teacher got wind of the interesting warp that Wolfie's bloodthirst had made in the project, she tried to explain that this was not within the bounds of what she'd asked us to do at all.
This was not Ultimate Fighting for Spiders -- this was our education! We were studying normal spider behaviour, and our offerings were messing up Wolfie's normal diet.
But I wasn't so sure. Maybe Wolfie was an alpha spider who did this all the time! Maybe he was the spider to end all spiders! And he was growing... his leg span now met all the edges of the jar. Every time I would pick the vessel up, I would shiver involuntarily, imagining his legs touching my hand without the glassy shield keeping me safe. I took careful notes of his doings, but I really couldn't wait for the whole thing to be over.
And my prayers for clemency were answered, but not in the way I thought they'd be, with a trembling release into the woods near my home and a sprint in the other direction.
While over at my friend's house with a group of fellow spider parents, I set Wolfie's jar on a kitchen counter while I went off to use the bathroom. The family cat -- an hyperactive orange tabby aptly named Tigger -- hopped up there in the midst of his rounds, and spotted Wolfie through the glass like a diner checking out bound-claw lobsters in a tank.
I heard the glass smash on my way back down the hallway. Tigger had body-checked the jar right onto the kitchen floor. My friend was screaming in horror -- not at the broken glass, but at Wolfie being released into her home to wreak certain havoc. But she needn't have feared: Tigger spotted the beast making a break for it, and smacked it into stillness with a single paw.
We were transfixed; it was like National Geographic and the Zoo and Mad Max all rolled into one.
The brave hunter held Wolfie there for a second, perhaps trying to decide how committed she was to dealing with my hairy pet. Or perhaps she was deciding what to eat first. And a moment later, half of Wolfie's legs were sticking out of her mouth.
We screamed. We ran away. We burst into tears. It was graphic and weird and project-ending. Tigger seemed satisfied with the texture and flavour of his snack, and as my friend's mom cleaned up the glass (leaves, grass, dead flies, spider skeletons...) she seemed relieved that this thing wouldn't be staring at her from a glassy prison anymore.
When I got home that day and explained what had happened, we managed to find a substitute in the carport as cute as Diana and half the size of the deceased behemoth. We named her Ruby for the red speckles on her legs.
But it just wasn't the same, this project, with Wolfie gone. As much as I was terrified of my freakshow spider, I loved that I had the biggest, scariest, hairiest, most violent beast in the class.
Fortunately, my seventh grade boyfriend went on to meet all those requirements and more.
2:37:31 PM 
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