This lovely darling was discovered yesterday on the door at OtherJob; he is slightly larger than a quarter and furry. The furry spiders, as you all well know, are the scarier ones. I saw him first and pointed him out to the other person I was working with, who I believe is a high school senior. He is not, unfortunately, the most masculine high school senior I’ve ever met; his reaction was not quite Scooby-Doo windmilling his legs before jumping into Shaggy’s arms, but was close enough. I proceeded to continue horrifying him by rescuing the spider with a plastic putter and, fighting off the urge to chase the kid around the golf course, deposited him safely in a nearby bush.

“He’s gonna come back,” the kid said. “Remember the katydid?”

(I never told you the katydid story because it’s sad. Short, not-sad version: we couldn’t convince a katydid that it was safer outside the clubhouse than inside it.)

“I doubt it,” I said, thinking of the wide expanse of concrete the spider would have to cross in more-or-less broad daylight. “We won’t see him again.”

Fast forward about three hours, when there is a blood-curdling scream from somewhere around course three. I rush outside to discover a female customer in her mid-forties or so jumping up and down, wailing, and waving her arms frantically in front of her face.

Her husband described the spider that had webbed down directly in front of her face as “about the size of a quarter” and said “yup, that’s it” when I showed him the picture I’d taken. His wife was not pleased when I used the word “hilarious” to describe the situation.

Well, no, ma’am, your spine-tingling horror isn’t funny. It’s just that I could have killed that spider a few hours ago and saved you the trouble. I coulda said that. I chose not to.

I’m hoping there are no insect stories today.