Last night while working in the temple, I spied a spider crawling across the floor of one the the booths in initiatory. Now, I am not someone who squashes bugs randomly - I do kill mosquitos, fleas, houseflies, and cockroaches, but that's about it. (I even have an orange cup in my classroom labeled "Spider Cup," and my students know that if they spy an insect, they are welcome to get out of their seat, grab the cup, scoop up the bug, and put it outside through one of our windows.)
But a bug in the temple is a different situation. I can't leave my work in initiatory to catch it and release it through the door of the temple. So I decided to just let it continue its meandering through my booth, hoping the patron would not notice it.
No such luck. She spied it and immediately became agitated, dancing in her chair and working to draw my attention to the spider. I had to do something.
But what? Killing it really went against my own personal philosophy. But I wasn't able to take it outside, nor did I have anything with which to catch it.
"Grab a tissue!" she hissed through her clenched teeth.
Okay, that let me know that if I didn't act, she would, and it would not be to the spider's benefit.
I grabbed the learning card I had with me, slid it under the spider, and lifted him up, carrying him outside the booth. The patron could not see what I did with him since she was now behind a privacy curtain. No one was in the waiting area to see and protest that I was releasing a spider, so I quickly tossed him in the corner by a long bench, and called it good.
The spider lived, hopefully to find a place to go where it could spin its webs and live out its life, the patron was no longer distracted and upset, and I was able to stick to my personal beliefs about unnecessary killing.
Win-win, right?
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