In 1985, while attending Gonzaga University—a Jesuit institution—students shared the dining hall with fifty or sixty nuns who lived in a dormitory-turned-convent. We students didn’t think positively or negatively about this situation. We barely had any interaction with the holy women, though a few of us took to shouting, “Get thee to a nunnery!” at one another—but never at the nuns—after we took a Shakespeare class. I’m sure the nuns must have heard us shouting Hamlet’s curse at one another, but being a rather scholarly bunch, they were probably more amused than insulted.
The brown recluse spider is not an aggressive spider and attacks only when hurt or threatened. Its bite, however, contains a very aggressive poison that can form a necrotizing ulcer that destroys soft tissue and sometimes bone. So this six-eyed spider is passive and dangerous. And it’s strangely beautiful. It often has markings on its stomach and back that resemble violins. Yes, this spider could be thought of as a tattooed musician.
While waiting in the lunch line behind a nun, I noticed a brown recluse spider perched on her shoulder. I reflexively slapped the arachnid to the floor. The nun must have thought I’d slapped her in jest or cruelty because she turned and glared at me. But then I pointed at the brown recluse spider scuttling across the floor away from us. At first, the nun stepped back, but then she took two huge steps forward and crushed the spider underfoot. The nun gasped; I gasped. Mortified, she looked at me and said, “I’m sorry.” And then she looked down at the mutilated spider and said, “You, too.”