Spider's Revenge

I think that it is generally agreed that the plotting of 'Jaws: The Revenge' was awfully silly. We are to understand that a shark seeks vengeance on the family of the sheriff who played a key role in killing two different sharks years before. It's a laughable premise on its face, and yet perhaps I won't be laughing any more. You see, I have had an experience myself which makes me believe that it just might be possible for such a thing to happen.

As you will have read yesterday, a spider bit me a number of days ago. I believe I killed it quite inadvertently. It was a reflexive act, though I might well have done it with malice aforethought had circumstances been different. As it was, the probable killing removed any possibility of making a species ID. The opportunity to do so would have eased the anxiety I felt after, so this is no small thing. In any case, the offending spider is in all likelihood dead. That is why the next thing that happened seems remarkable.

There I was, eating with some friends at a restaurant prior to improv class. I believe it was while we were deliberating over what food to order that it happened. A black spider of unknown species crawled right across my right leg, prompting me to swat it aside with alarm. My very first thought was of a possible connection to prior events. Really, I wondered whether something was going on with me that would draw in spiders to any unusual degree. It hardly seems possible. I have not in the past been a magnet for them, and nothing germane has changed.

Still I can't shake the notion entirely. Surely it's coincidence that a spider would encroach in such a way just a day after a different spider assaulted me so, and yet it seems all too coincidental, especially considering that an eatery of the kind we were patronizing can hardly be having spiders roam around in great numbers with impunity. They undoubtedly take much greater precautions against such things than I do at home. So it is that I wonder.