All I can think of is those spiders from Harry Potter...

So today was a fine day, we had art day in class. My kids wrote poems about their first week of school and then got to illustrate them with colored pencils, crayons, and clippings from magazines. There was talking, laughter, learning, and some music. A good day. I didn't have any meetings, even better. Then after school Ang and I worked in her room a while then moved down to mine to work. That's when things went bad.

We are rearranging a bit, we have 2 consumables for each child this year (a writing handbook and a reading handbook), a journal, and a portfolio - all things that need to be kept in the room. So I decided to make little areas for each of my 3 classes. I decided to put 1st hour in the farthest corner of the room by the window. Ang moved the 3 empty milk crates that had been sitting there waiting to be filled. As she did she says, "Hey, look at this cool spider web" then proceeds to scream, drop the milk crate, jump up ON TOP of one of my desks and walk across the desks to the back of the room. She's yelling for her shoes that she'd just taken off (by now we've been working over 10 hours) and I am looking at her bewildered. This behavior seems just puerile (rock on! that's one of the 36 new words I've learned in the last 3 days from my GRE prep program I've put myself on - by the way, it means childish).

But she's still screaming and I take her the shoes and then look in the crate. And there it is, an ugly black spider, which I know she hates, but I freak out too because it's also orange. So I back away and follow Ang from the room. She runs down the hall to Leslie's room to hide and I am sent to find the "boys" (aka janitors). They are no where to be found. So I go to my boss's office and ask her to call them to my room on the radio. She smiles and does saying, "Spider rescue to room 109". Here's the funny part. Two of the boys heard her correctly and opted not to come, I knew they wouldn't unless forced too. They hate spiders as much as we do. But a minute later I hear keys jingling down the hall and I see Bill running with a fire extinguisher. I say, "What are you going to stomp on it with that?" and he says, "No, I heard they needed fire and rescue in room 109!" Gotta love miscommunication.

So he goes in the room and I follow him and I look in the crate and the spiders gone and I'm like, fantastic! great! super! But wait, no there it is, in another corner of the crate. And Bill looks in and puts his arm toward me and says, "Move back." So I do, to the doorway across the room. He says it's a baby Black Widow Spider. And I freak out. Silently of course, but I still freak out. And leave the room. He goes to get the ant spray the school supplies them with (why in the world we don't have raid I don't know, no one can explain it to me) and goes in to kill it.

So apparently these spiders are becoming a noisome (another GRE word - meaning nasty) nusiance in our school. They caught 7 of them in our conference room last week and one wouldn't die. It looked like it was rearing on it's hind legs and coming toward the ant spray, according to Bill. This did not make me feel ANY better. And the boys were surprised the spiders had gotten to this side of the building, far away from the fields.

So yeah, I've seen my first, and God-willing (I am seriously praying for this) my last, black widow. Rumor has it they fight each other and don't travel in packs, which is good news for my classroom but I figure if it's a baby, there's got to be a mama somewhere. So I will be on the lookout from here on out. Also, I am never going barefoot in school again (something I did a lot in my carpeted room), I'm going to start wearing my steel-toed Doc Marten shoes, I'm going to buy myself a can of Raid for my closet, and I have to check everything I touch now. Or just not touch things where they might hide.

So yeah, that's Yuma for ya. Not only do we have six inch cockroaches, we've got black widows. And it's even too freaking hot to go swimming. What could be better?!?!?!