For the past several years, I’ve been locked in “Conflict” with a spider that had set up shop in a stairway in the building I worked in. One day, way back when – I can’t exactly remember when – I spotted it. It had set up a web at the top of the stairs, down in the corner by the floor, and without really knowing why, I said the following aloud:
Not today, Stairway Spider.
Thus began a kind of Wile E. Coyote v. Roadrunner (Minus any involvement with, or interference from, the ACME Corporation) contest.
Every time I used that stairway, I’d look for a web somewhere and proclaim, “Not today, Stairway Spider.”
Now I realize that over that span of time, there was probably more than one Stairway Spider. There were times when I didn’t see anything at all, and I congratulated my “adversary” on the improvement of their stealth skills, while continuing to assert that today would not be the day it caught me.
I even remember a time when someone had lost a hair tie on the stairs. I saw it laying there and, at first, I suspected that my opponent had set a trap for me. Later on, I decided that the hair tie, which had remained on the stairs for nearly a week, was all that was left of some unfortunate soul who had been overcome by the Stairway Spider.
I have since retired from that job – I say that like it’s been a long time when I’ve only been officially retired for less than 24 hours – and while I said goodbye to a great many people over the course of that final week, one of the last things I did was to take that stairway one final time and, as always, I proclaimed that today would not, in fact, be the day that I would be overcome.
As I opened the door at the base of the stairs, I turned, looking back up the way I came and I said goodbye to my sometimes imaginary opponent. I didn’t wish them luck, as I wouldn’t want anyone to come to an unfortunate end, but I did acknowledge them as having been a worthy adversary over the years.
Now some of you might be scratching your heads, thinking that I’ve cracked, but hear me out.
Joy, even small joys, are where you find them and are worth recognizing. Every time I took those stairs – and I used them often – I found a tiny bit of delight in the ridiculousness of it all. But ridiculous or not, one of the happy memories I’ll be carrying forward with me is this unlikely game of cat and mouse played silently (Ok, mostly Silently – of the two of us, I was much more vocal) in this back stairway.
Thanks for reading. Be safe out there. Be Excellent to Each other – and yourself.
I’ll see you on Thursday.
###
If you’ve read, and enjoyed any of my books, please consider leaving a review: