Bob The Spider

Spider:  Any of various eight-legged, predatory arthropods most of which spin webs to catch prey.

In the Seaweed household, I - Little Stevie Seaweed - have been banished to the guest bathroom. SuperK has spoken - she has flexed her considerable muscles and she roams the large master bathroom like a caged beast, alone and in control.  Sometimes when I'm in the guest bathroom I use the facilities.  Sometimes I stand and sometimes I sit down.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

One day - while sitting, if you must know - I noticed a spider peeking out from the space created where the flooring veers away from the bottom of the wall in my well-made home.  On a whim I blew on this spider and he backed further into the space.  I could see him there.  He was hiding but not completely hidden.  

"I can see you there," I said.

I'm fond of spiders.  Anything that can make a living finding something to eat in my sterile home is OK by me.  I figure the odds of a spider inflicting grievous bodily harm on me is going to be less than any damage caused by whatever said arachnid is catching and eating.

I named him Bob.  He looked like a good, spider-of-the-earth spider.  He wasn't particularly big but he wasn't small, either.  He had long legs and he was black, black, black.  Sometimes when I blew on him he vanished back into the wall and sometimes he held his ground.  Usually he was half-in, half-out but then again it wasn't unusual for him to be skooched out completely.  From time to time: No Bob.  But he always came back.

I began to look for him eagerly.

"Hi, Bob," I'd say.  Sometimes I'd shout out with great enthusiasm: "Bob!" I wanted him to know I was glad to see him.   Sometimes I'd say his name with an inflection meant to convey that I knew he was up to something.  I didn't know what, exactly, but something was going on.  It was admonishing and affectionate at the same time: "Bahhhhhhhbob?"

I couldn't decide what his deal was exactly.  He never built a web which I thought was spider Job One.  Was he a stupid spider?  Was he a lazy spider?  Was he a visionary, certain that he had a system to lure his prey right into his floorboard home?  It crossed my mind that he might have been tasked by a more managerial spider with protecting something of great value in the spider world, although what that might be I couldn't say.  Bob could have been spider muscle, a spider bouncer as it were.

Maybe he was a great spider preacher, trying to convince other spiders to follow his teachings.  This became curiously attractive to me.  Spider the Baptist, roaming the desert, eating locusts and dressed in whatever passes for spider rags.  I mean: c'mon, he was hanging out on the floor.

I never saw him catch anything but he was there for several days, which surprised me.  I thought spiders lived for a few brief, shining moments.

On the last day I walked by the bathroom and Bob was on the move - he was making a run for the door.  Across the linoleum he skittered, dancing up and over the rim of the hall carpet, vanishing in its pattern.  "Bob's on the move!" I shouted to SuperK, alarmed.

He has not been seen since.

Nor has SuperK.

Maybe they're one and the same.   I've never seen those two in the same room at the same time. 

I'm uncertain as to what this has to do with recovery.  I don't think Bob was a drunk.  He doesn't attend the same meetings as I do.

Godspeed, Bob.  I hope you find what you're looking for.