I Found One of These ...

at the supermarket yesterday.

I picked up a box of grapes - you know those clear plastic things they come in these days. I just happened to notice a spider in there, nestled among the grapes. Almost certainly, it had made its home in the grape arbor, gotten picked, packed and shipped, and ended up right there in the store, waiting for me to pick it up.

I didn't recognize it right away - I just thought, "spider." But I didn't want to buy a box grapes with a free arachnid prize, and I didn't want to just put the box back, giving somebody else the gift of a spider-freak-out. So my first thought was to just go tell a store employee about it. I quickly scanned the store to find an employee, and after I sighted her, I glanced down at the box to make sure the spider was still there.

It was at that point that some little part of my brain started jumping up and down, and I thought, "Hey, that spider looks kind of familiar."

See, this widow wasn't gloss-black like the one in the picture here. My grape spider had red and white markings on its back. But a few months ago I happened to be at the library with the girls, thumbing through a kids' book about spiders, when I saw a picture of a black widow unlike any I'd ever seen. It had red and white markings on its back, along with the telltale red hourglass on its belly. I remembered thinking, "I'll be darned. I never knew a black widow could look like that."

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I assure you: They can look like that. Apparently juveniles are especially prone to extraneous markings.

Anyway, I shifted the grape box in my hands, and thankfully Little Miss Widow complied by turning on her back. And there was the little red hourglass, plain as day. I already knew that widows tend to be very shy, docile spiders, so I wasn't worried about it jumping out and biting me.

I walked over to where the store worker was, but she was helping another customer, so I waited until she finished. I was glad it was an employee I recognized. She always says hi to me and the girls, so it wasn't like she was a complete stranger.

Finally when it was clear I quietly told her about it and showed her the spider. After an initial "No way!" she took the grape box to the back of the store and - we can only assume - disposed of the widow. (She seemed cool about it, so I think she was perfectly capable of carrying out the squishing duties.)

All in all, it was pretty weird. The store employee kept thanking me. She even said that a lot of moms will open those grape boxes right in the store and let their kids eat out of them.

It goes without saying, I was happy to help.