3 Beetles and a Spider: A Lesson in Animal Survival
This morning I was reveling in my 24 hours of not being on call -- from 6am to 6am tomorrow morning. I enjoyed a leisurely morning, drank some coffee, said my prayers and reflected on the Lord's teachings, read some of Pioneer Woman's blogs, talked to Kyle and Cody as they were going to Frontier City and got the appropriate mindset to begin cleaning house for Meg's arrival tomorrow.
I wandered into the laundry room and picked up the soaking wet pile of red clothes (they all weren't red when I dressed yesterday morning!) from the floor. I started the washing machine with the intent to fill it and let the malodorous pile soak for a while. I threw them in the water and watched as three big black beetles and a decent sized wolf spider emerged from their folds. Now, I'm not a big spider fan so as I was squealing in delight about the fact that the spider would probably drown (is it okay for a veterinarian to feel this way? Honestly...it's an insect, not an "animal" and I'm not an entomologist.) when I witnessed an act of animal aggression, of pure survival instinct. As the water rose to the top of the clothes there were a few folds still above the wrath of the water. Two of the beetles kept to their own territory but one ended up on a fold with the spider. The spider spun around a few times...obviously being the tyrant that he is - he was making his battle plan. He proceeded to knock the beetle off into the water and did a happy dance while watching the beetle fight for his life! Thankfully the beetle, whom I was wholeheartedly cheering for in this war, found his swimming apparatus and climbed willfully onto the fold again. The spider began running (do you call it running even if the thing doing the action has eight legs?) back and forth on the fold of a pair of jeans over the top of the beetle several times. Mr. Arachnid then raised an appendage as if to say...here's my white flag. I surrrender. He plunged into the bottomless depths of the washing machine, committing spider suicide. Of course, he could have been faking and planning the entire time to find another tidbit of fabric temporarily above the water - but then the unthinkable happened! The spin cycle began and all the soldiers perished. (You didn't think this was going to have a happy ending did you?) And even I lost in this war because I have to fish the insectoid carcasses out of my washing machine.
I wandered into the laundry room and picked up the soaking wet pile of red clothes (they all weren't red when I dressed yesterday morning!) from the floor. I started the washing machine with the intent to fill it and let the malodorous pile soak for a while. I threw them in the water and watched as three big black beetles and a decent sized wolf spider emerged from their folds. Now, I'm not a big spider fan so as I was squealing in delight about the fact that the spider would probably drown (is it okay for a veterinarian to feel this way? Honestly...it's an insect, not an "animal" and I'm not an entomologist.) when I witnessed an act of animal aggression, of pure survival instinct. As the water rose to the top of the clothes there were a few folds still above the wrath of the water. Two of the beetles kept to their own territory but one ended up on a fold with the spider. The spider spun around a few times...obviously being the tyrant that he is - he was making his battle plan. He proceeded to knock the beetle off into the water and did a happy dance while watching the beetle fight for his life! Thankfully the beetle, whom I was wholeheartedly cheering for in this war, found his swimming apparatus and climbed willfully onto the fold again. The spider began running (do you call it running even if the thing doing the action has eight legs?) back and forth on the fold of a pair of jeans over the top of the beetle several times. Mr. Arachnid then raised an appendage as if to say...here's my white flag. I surrrender. He plunged into the bottomless depths of the washing machine, committing spider suicide. Of course, he could have been faking and planning the entire time to find another tidbit of fabric temporarily above the water - but then the unthinkable happened! The spin cycle began and all the soldiers perished. (You didn't think this was going to have a happy ending did you?) And even I lost in this war because I have to fish the insectoid carcasses out of my washing machine.
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