Yesterday, I took the kids with me to make the fabric store rounds, looking for a particular fabric for a project I’m doing for Little Sis. The second one we went to is staffed by a bevy of old ladies who vacillate between being sweet and crotchety. Since the boys had already tolerated a surprisingly long time in the first store thanks to their Nintendo DS’s, I agreed that C could bring in his spider when he asked me.

Now, the spider is a toy tarantula made out of squishy and slightly sticky stuff, meant to be thrown at windows and fall down in a way that approximates climbing. It is nearly life-size and accurately colored. It looks pretty real if you just catch a glance of it.

I told C, “You can bring it in, but you can’t throw it.”

C assured me he would only toss it from hand to hand lightly, and not at anything.

So in we went, and they sat down near the front door and I looked for the fabric for about two minutes. They were very quiet and when I didn’t see anything like what I needed, I said, “Let’s go to the next store, guys.”

“Um, okay,” said C, “but first I need my spider.” And he pointed up at the ceiling. The spider was directly above the cutting table, stuck with his belly to the ceiling, perched like a real spider. We waited a few minutes, but the spider – contrary to its past behavior – stuck firm and did not fall down.

I looked up at the spider and debated leaving it behind. But I knew C would be devastated, and there was a strong possibility that one of the shop ladies would look up and not realize it wasn’t real and have a heart attack. My heart jumped a bit when I looked up and saw it, and I knew it was fake. Seeing a palm-sized spider straight above you is enough to give anyone pause.

So I asked one of the shop ladies – three of them were fluttering around the UPS man at the time – if they had a broom or something, because my son had thrown his toy spider at the ceiling and gotten it stuck. She looked up, clutched her chest a bit, and said, “I’m glad you warned me it was a toy.”

The shop stepladder was duly brought out, along with a yardstick, and we poked at the spider. It rolled over but stayed stuck where it was.

“You need to get up there and grab it,” the UPS man put in. We all looked up at the ceiling, which was still far overhead even from the top step for any of us. He grinned and climbed up himself, standing on tiptoe at the top step, and was just able to grab it with his fingertips while the shop ladies twittered about caution and their liability.

“Usually it falls right down,” C remarked as the spider was handed back to him.

The shop ladies, who now were all smiles since no one had fallen off the ladder, laughed indulgently at this. “It must like acoustic ceiling tiles!” one said. “You can tell all your friends.”

The spider rescued, apologies and thanks given out liberally, we left the shop with C clutching his spider and grinning widely. I’m sure it was a huge adventure to him, but I may not be able to show my face in that quilt shop again.

As we got in the car, I told C the spider wasn’t allowed in stores anymore. “Yeah,” he agreed, “Cause it sticks really good to acoustic ceiling tiles.”