the spider

Last Thursday morning I was sitting in a lecture room in Andover Hall on the campus of Harvard Divinity School. I was there with my parents and Amy's parents watching the live simulcast of the main Harvard graduation -- which was happening over on the Yard (or "Yahd," if you're from New England). The live simulcast in itself was funny because they even had two Harvard (read "hahvahd") professors actually commentating on everything, like it was some sports event. The camera would even cut back to the commentators here and there and they'd be wearing the little headsets and interviewing some Harvard grad who was studying something obscure like how robotics can be used to help fix someone's damaged vocal cords.

Once the whole ceremony got started, they opened it all up with a Rabbi leading a prayer. At that same time, back in the lecture room where we were watching it on a big screen, out of the corner of my eye I saw something small fall down in front of me. I looked down to find that a spider had decided to leave his ceiling post at that moment and land on my left leg. And this was no tiny spider. It was a medium spider.

Now, I can handle getting rid of most spiders--providing that they're not ON me. This medium-sized rebel had totally crossed the line by touching me. So, I tense up and squirm and wiggle around, trying to get my mom's attention (who's sitting to my right) and Amy's dad's attention (who's sitting to my left). They see the evil-doer on my leg and also see me squirming around in my chair and internally, as I'm trying to decide if I should touch the eight-legged madman to get it off my leg or let it crawl off.**

**My inner thought process: "No, I can't let it crawl off because then I won't know where it is, and then it could crawl back onto me later! AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!"

So, simultaneously, my mom and Amy's dad start slapping and brushing my left leg as I squirm around, the spider freaks out and runs up my leg and then onto the chair I'm in, and the rabbi on the big screen is leading everyone in a big quiet prayer. The people in front of us are starting to look back at our little ruckus-- which must have looked like I was being attacked by my family-- and then we lose track of where the spider went. So, the big quiet prayer continues, I now don't know where the spider is, the people in front of me turn ahead again, and my mom starts shaking uncontrollably with the laughter she's trying to hold in after seeing a spider jump on the one person in the room who would freak out by that.

I look down at the floor and see the spider on my jacket. The big prayer is continuing, and just as the rabbi says something about praying for world peace and stopping the killing of the innocent, I start stomping the life out of the spider on the floor.

Let me give you the overall picture at this point:

Big quiet prayer + mentions of killing the innocent + me stomping a spider to death on the floor + the steady thumping of my foot on the floor + people in front of me looking back + mom is now crying she's trying to hold in her laughter so much = a humorous divinity school scene.

And what's funnier is that despite all the interesting pomp and circumstance of the great graduation from Harvard, all my family will probably remember about Amy's graduation ceremony is how a spider jumped on me and I loudly terminated it with my foot.