On the web at the library

I was avoiding human interaction today, hiding in the library when an associate called me over for a consult.  She was staring off into space, carefully collecting her thoughts so I waited patiently for her to address me.  After a few moments of companionable silence, she finally said, "Well?"  "Well...what?" I responded somewhat testy about being interrupted from my important work of hiding from 6th grade students.  "Isn't it remarkable," Laurie asked, gesturing grandly. A big fan of oxygen for as far back as I can remember, I agreed, eager to return to my low-profile, under-trafficked position in the corner of the library.  "Don't you see it," she said prompting me to take a closer look.  Oh!  A tiny brown spider dangled delicately at eye level from a single invisible thread.  Tipping our heads back in wonder, we followed the course of its silken trail up to the high vaulted ceiling some twenty-five feet or so above us.  It was a solemn moment as we considered the complexities of the universe.  It was the kind of moment that would lead one to consider the presence of an ultimate creator, a grand designer.  I wasn't surprised when my colleague knelt down in humble supplication.  I was shocked when she stood, armed with a shoe and went to lunge at our friendly little spider.  I threw myself bodily between them.  "Laurie! What are you doing," I shrieked, breaking the second of the cardinal rules of the library.  The first rule is to refrain from using the library as a clandestine hangout for absentee educators.  "I'm killing the spider," she explained as though this was the most common of occurrences.  "Can't we just take him outside," I pleaded as the tiny arachnid's life literally hung in the balance while Laurie weighed this idea.  After she replaced her shoe, I grabbed a sheet of paper and brought it up beneath his furry little legs before he could reach the end of the line. Laurie and I sprang into synchronized action.  She raced to the door, allowing me open access while I heebie-jeebied my way across the room, emitting courageous little sounds, "uh....uh....uh...eeiiiii!" as I sent him spiraling through the air into the great outdoors.  The excitement of our inter-library catch-and-release program concluded, I returned to my alcove and momentarily watched the students at the nearby computer stations ironically researching on the world wide web.  I made the obvious connections between the solitary nature of a spider and my own need to briefly withdraw from the constant buzz of conversation, the drone of incessant chitter-chatter, the hum of the humdrum.  Sure, people bug me now and again but generally speaking, I rarely feel the need to squash them with my shoe.  I'm not adamantly opposed to flinging a person or two out the door once in awhile though.  And yes, I recall the lesson from the country song.  "Sometimes I'm the windshield.  Sometimes I'm the bug."  Sometimes I'm the small brown spider.  Sometimes I'm the lady with the paper.  Sometimes I'm a crazed lunatic wielding a shoe.  Put down the shoe, people!  Set that spider free!