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Tag Archives: superpowers

On spiders and coworkers

I think I found a new superpower.  I see spiders on coworkers.  Not like fake spiders.  I’m not hallucinating spiders on people.  I just seem to have a knack for seeing a spider crawling over my coworkers.  And by knack, I mean that I’ve seen it happen twice.  (Also, there are no pictures of spiders in this post.)

The second time happened just recently.  I was at lunch with my PM, whom I will call 💄 (yes there is a reason behind my choice in emoji, no I won’t explain what it is), inside a relatively nice restaurant.  He was talking to me about a project when I looked up and saw a small jumping spider crawling across his chest.  True to form, I didn’t say anything right away.  It was a jumping spider after all.  I thought maybe it would jump off.  But no, it continued on its merry way all the way up to his collar.  At that point, I decided that it would be a good idea to say something.  I figured my PM would probably start if he felt the spider crawl onto his neck and then maybe he’d fling the spider into someone’s food and cause a big commotion.  I try and avoid big commotions.

The thing was, he was talking and kept talking.  I don’t really like to interrupt people.  Also, it’s hard for me to interrupt people.  They generally don’t hear me.  But I figured I really needed to make an effort to let him know that there was a spider on his collar.

When I finally got his attention, as he didn’t really need to pay attention to me to tell me about the project, it took longer than I expected to convey the information that there was a spider on his collar.  First of all, it took a while for him to understand that there was a spider on his shirt.  Then it took longer for him to understand that it was on his collar.

Me: [💄], there’s a spider on your shirt.

💄: What?  Anyway, I think we will need the software—

Me: Really, there’s a spider on your shirt.  It’s on your collar.

💄: Huh?  About the software, have you used it before?

Me: Spider.  On your shirt.  Collar.  [points to collar]

💄: Oh, there’s a spider on me?  [brushes at shoulder]

Me: No, on your collar.  [points to collar]

💄: Huh?  [brushes at chest]

Me: Collar!  [points to collar]

💄: [brushes at sleeve]

Me: The spider is on your collar!

💄: Oh, my collar?  [looks at collar, sees spider, calmly brushes spider off]  It’s a jumping spider.

Me: Yes, it is a jumping spider. [secretly impressed 💄 knows it’s a jumping spider; immediately makes mental comparisons to previous spider-on-coworker incident]

Overall, I was quite amused by the incident. 💄’s demeanor was quite different from Mr. Arachnid’s.  There was no stiffening in surprise. 💄 was calm and relaxed and nonchalant about the whole ordeal.  But he also completely was not listening to me otherwise the incident would have been over much quicker.  Perhaps it was also slightly infuriating since he was listening but totally not listening to me at the same time.  At least Mr. Arachnid listened and then later told me that I should tell him such things sooner so that “we can plan a course of action.”  I am still very entertained by that line.

As it was, 💄 brushed the spider off into the aisle and there possibly was a waiter walking by at the time.  I don’t really remember.  The spider might have made it onto someone’s food despite all my effort.  Sugh.

The amazing Man-Spider!

Let’s speculate.  Because it’s fun to do.

You all know the origin story of the amazing Spider-Man right?  Mild-mannered Peter Parker is accidentally bitten by a radioactive spider and acquires the agility and proportionate strength of an arachnid as well as the ability to cling to walls and ceilings.  With these new found powers, he goes on to become Spider-Man.

But…what if we reversed that?

What if, instead it was a radioactive spider biting a human, you have a radioactive human biting a spider?  Radioactive humans exist, either for medical treatment or science experiments gone wrong or ignorance or nuclear disasters.  They exist.  Now, what if you got one of them to bite a spider?

Admittedly, this would be difficult.  A spider can bite a human and the human can survive since a spider is typically much, much smaller than a human (and we are discounting venom).  I’m not really sure how a human can bite a spider and have the spider survive.

I guess we can play with the sizes a little.  Make the spider one of the giant species of tarantula, like the Gooty sapphire (links to a picture, obvs).  They grow to be about as big as your face.  Another plus about the Gooty sapphire is that they already have a really great crime-fighting outfit.  They’re really pretty spiders.

Female spiders also tend to be bigger than male spiders, so we could also make sure the spider in question is female.  I’m not sure if that would change the title of the character though.  The amazing Girl-Spider?  The amazing Woman-Spider?  I guess it doesn’t really change it.  Because those two titles imply that it was a female human biting a spider.   I guess we don’t differentiate gender in spiders with different terminology.  And we could argue that we’re using “man” as a generic term for humankind.  For simplicity’s sake.

But what kind of powers would the amazing Man-Spider obtain from getting bitten (and surviving) by a radioactive human?  Peter Parker didn’t lose any of his human abilities when the spider bit him, so I don’t think our spider should lose any of her spider abilities.  Humans are known for their…speech?  And intelligence?  And opposable thumbs?  I guess those would be good traits for the amazing Man-Spider to have.

So the amazing Man-Spider!  A spider bitten by a radioactive human!  Inexplicably develops opposable thumbs on all of her legs and the ability to speak and gains super-intelligence (for a spider)!  With these new found powers, she decides to go and fight crime!  And I bet she’d be pretty successful at it judging by the rampant arachnophobia in this world.