In honor of Halloween: a spider story

My first job out of college was in the management program for K-Mart. My first store was in San Bernardino, CA.
One of the store areas for which I was responsible was the garden shop. This included an outdoor area with aisles of bedding plants and flowers. Reporting to work daily at 8AM, I was supposed to walk through the plant aisles to reach the alarms panel or light panel, or some such device necessary for opening the store.

And what did I find? Not one aisle was safe to walk through. All night long--everynight--garden spiders, hundreds of them spun giant orb webs connecting aisle to aisle, petunias to pansies, rose bushes to venus flytraps. There they hung, all 8 legs spread-eagled in center of webs, big as Cadillacs, ugly as sin. It was my worst nightmare, compounded by the rest of the management team convulsed with laughter over sending the latest sucker, ME, to turn on the lights.

I can't remember how I handled it. Probably I conned an employee.

The thing is, by the time the store opened at 10AM, all spiders and webs had disappeared. Shoppers thronged, never knowing what was evidently lurking under leaves. At dusk, the spiders were on the job again.

You might want to consider this they next time you buy bedding plants. Check under the leaves.

Add this to one of the several dozens reasons I hated my year working for K-Mart. I've had two horrid, no good, very bad years in my lifetime. K-Mart and 6th grade.