Gryphon's Word of the Day, April 16, 2007

The word of the day for April 16, 2007 is "arachnid" - noun : any of a class (Arachnida) of arthropods comprising chiefly terrestrial invertebrates, including the spiders, scorpions, mites, and ticks, and having a segmented body divided into two regions of which the anterior bears four pairs of legs but no antennae.

When Tim came home from university one summer, he went to the movie, Arachnaphobia, with a friend. The next day, I heard him shouting from his bedroom in the basement. He had, he said, sighted an unusual spider in his bedroom. It was hairy and black with a round, white dot in the center of its back. Being the macho dude that he is, he had killed it-with his shoe, I think.

Several days later, I opened the door to get the mail. A hairy, black spider with a round, white spot fell off the door handle onto the porch floor. It started walking toward the door. "You're too late," I said, "He's already gone back to school." The spider turned and walked across the porch and down the step. I never saw that spider or another like it again.

The quote for today is from George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950):

     I dread success. To have succeeded is to have finished one's business
     on earth, like the male spider, who is killed by the female the moment he
     has succeeded in his courtship. I like a state of continual becoming, with
     a goal in front and not behind.

;^)

Tags: arachnid