<<Besides, didn't your Granny ever tell you that killing a spider changes the weather?>>

Granny didn't admit to the existence of spiders in her orderly world. Mom, however, said: "ya skeesh a spider, we gits rain." I think she said it that way because she was quoting a Pogo character. We wuz deep south, but not That deep south!

Mom once showed me a mother wolf spider and gently flicked all the babies off the spider's back with a pencil tip. The babies scattered about the room, and the mother spider went under the sofa. After a while, she came out and gathered up all the wee ones. - It was a rather touching scene; but for pure sentiment and communion, one would have to take Walter Anderson and the cockroach.

Tsyganka, who admits to teasing with the last sentence