The last three weeks have been very busy for me, my coworker and our library's pet tarantula Charlotte. We have been going to schools to talk about our Summer Reading program. The theme is all about bugs so we bring Charlotte in, (I wear gloves in case the kids scare her as you can see in the picture above), give ten interesting facts about tarantulas, and then give our spiel about summer reading. The kids have just eaten it up. But there have been some interesting times with Charlotte...
Once I took Charlotte out and put her back in but did not completely close her cage. I thought there was no way for her to escape because she never had before. Then she started creeping up the side of it as I began giving facts about tarantulas. The kids interrupted me and started shouting, "she's getting out!" I said "she can't get out" and continued on with my program. They continued to shout and Charlotte crawled higher up the cage. Then as I wasn't looking she completely crawled right out of her cage a few feet away from some of the children. The room was filled with screams of terrified children. I had to act fast and grab her and put her back in. I bet that was all they talked about in school for the next WEEK.
Another time I took Charlotte out for the kids to see her and she started walking up my arm, she went up and up to my elbow, my shoulder then down my back. The kids were screaming. I couldn't see her down my back to put her back into her cage. I didn't want to push her off and drop her because tarantulas are very fragile. My coworker, who is frightened of spiders had to rescue me because no teachers were even thinking about coming to aid me. She gingerly grabbed Charlotte and put her back in the cage. She was not too thrilled about that.
Finally, one time when we were doing grade level after grade level back to back I reached in to pick up Charlotte and then she reared back and bit me. I was quite surprised, she had never done that before. Luckily I was wearing gloves but she put a nice hole in the leather. I liked telling some of the kids that Charlotte bit me, their eyes would always widen and some would say "No way! You didn't die?"
I told my coworker I don't know what I'm going to do next year for Summer Reading to top holding a tarantula. The only way I can top this is if I jump in there and light myself on fire. Although I don't think that fits with next year's theme.
3 comments:
See?? Tarantulas = baaad, bad bad bad! They crawl out of cages, put holes in perfectly nice gloves, crawl up and down backs... (how on Earth did you let that thing crawl about you like that?! I would have been screaming and cursing no matter who was around!)
Still, I have to say, the image I got reading "she crawled out into the midst of the now terrified and screaming children..." was pretty funny and I giggled. A lot. :-p
I think the tarantula especially terrified the children because I had just told them about how they can release hairs off their abdomen that can get in your eyes and mouth and put you in the hospital and perhaps leave you blind (in very rare cases but nonetheless it's happened.) So these scared kids were thinking "Aah, there's this tarantula crawling towards me and it's going to make me go blind!"
I feel I should feel guilty for laughing at this...
(continues laughing at image of children freaking out)
I'm really not a horrible person! :-)
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