Octomom

Meet Octomom. She is the resident wolf spider in our IT department. A few months ago she was haunting the exterior wall by the ID badge swiper, scaring many Groupies, when a couple of IT guys caught her and got her a cage. I have to admit - though I was terrified of her when she was on the loose, there is a certain curiosity about seeing such a large spider when she's confined to her plastic cage. It's a still-somewhat-scared curiosity, and I was the one who encouraged the spider abortion a couple months ago when she laid an egg sack. I certainly never felt any feelings of concern or care for her.

Until today. When she became Septomom. She eats crickets for food, but as my IT friend Anthony learned the hard way, apparently too many crickets at once can gang up on her. And, as a last ditch effort to save themselves when under attack, spiders will gnaw off their own legs and sacrifice it to their attackers. Which is how today, when Anthony came to work, he found a seven-legged spider and a group of crickets happily munching on her leg.

She was trying to climb up on the wall today, like she's doing in this picture. But with her seven legs, she was struggling and couldn't do it. And for the first time, I felt genuine care for Septomom. I really felt terrible that she had to give up her leg - to gnaw it off by herself - and now to be handicapped.

Sometimes there are people who are just unlovable. Maybe they're mean. Maybe they're rude. Maybe they're fine, but they just clash personalities with you. And it's easy to see those people the way I saw Octomom. You might interact with them, but actually caring for them? That's a little harder.

Whether or not you can see the torn off leg, everyone has wounds. And when you start to see the wounds those people have - their metaphorical sacrificial leg - you begin to see them differently. You begin to understand them better, to care for them, to empathize with them.