I’ve spent most of my career in IT, as corporate as it gets. Today, I am in a job for a city government which is very different.

I’m living the life of to a city mouse.

As the men come in and out of our ground floor work area in their high visibility vests, doors can be left open for convenience. Real work has to get done, and our customers—the Residents—call to tell us about water leaks and felled tree branches.

We are not virtual. We are close to the earth.

This week, I was wrapping up my work in preparation to leave for the day when by cube neighbor asked “Did you see the black widow?”

I slowly turned to him—confused and with growing horror.

He nods at me, “Yes, it’s spider season and there are probably a lot of them around.”

Oh, that’s reassuring. “I thought you meant one in this building.”

He smiled, with male delight at my horror. “I did. I’ve been watching it to see where it will go.”

“Why would you watch it? It should be killed! What are you waiting for?!”

“I agree, I definitely want it killed.”

I’m out of my seat now. “Do you know where it is?”

He’s gotten out of his chair too, now that I’m activated. “It’s right there,” he says, pointing to the corner of the room.

“IT’s HERE!? Are you sure it’s a black widow? Show me.”

He cannot hide his glee at my alarm, and he takes me the 20 steps to the exterior door where a fat-bottomed horror hangs between some unused cube shelves in a little alcove.

“See? He’s very happy there, no reason to move. But if he’s gotta be killed, I want to make sure he’s dead.”

Spider was cleverly not in a squishable position.

“She. All black widows are female.”

“Oh, right.”

“She looks like she’s about pop into hundreds of baby poison spiders.”

He chuckles. “I guess I should put in a request in a work request to have the exterminator handle it.”

I’m looking around for some spider killing spray, but nothing is nearby.

“Or I could ask Eduardo..”

I grabbed my stuff and got out of there. I forgot about the spider until halfway through the next day.

I knew what he meant about Eduardo. This guy liked insects, and had a pet scorpion in a cage about the size of a shoebox. Everyone knew this about Eduardo because the scorpion cage came to work almost every day, spending time in different offices. He had trick of glowing in the dark, so people would sometimes turn off the light and admire the him by flashing a special flashlight on him that made him glow even brighter.

It wasn’t until I saw Eduardo in the coffee area that I remembered the Widow.

“Good morning!” I said with a big smile. “How’s you pet?”

He gave me a dark look, “Which one?”

Oops. Had I stepped in something? “Your scorpion..”

“Oh, the scorpion. He’s fine.”

“Is there more to the story?”

“My centipede hasn’t been doing so well.”

Curiouser and Curiouser. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

“He’s not with us anymore.”

“oh no. Did anybody talk to you about the Spider?”

Eduardo bobbed his head up. “Oh yeah. I said I didn’t want to get involved with that mess”

We both separated with our coffee and I wondered about Eduardo’s definition of a mess when it came to insects. It was clear why my co-worker thought of him as a place to home the spider.

I went over to the spider’s lair and found an empty web.

This increases my concern.

Now I am worried about multiple baby spiders crawling out of unexpected crevices.

I suspect this won’t be the last unexpected surprise in my life as a city mouse.