To Kill a Spider

...blah blah blah blah. Self-important blather. Quit patting yourself on the back already! Get to the funny stuff, man! No one wants to read you talking to yourself about how important your writing is. Jeez! Tell us a real story.
Fine. I'll tell you an old one then -- about how I killed a certain spider.

One night this past summer, after a quick dinner of tater tots and fish sticks, the family headed outside to play a little in the evening sun. The plan was run around the yard and wear the kids out a bit before heading out for ice cream cones.
It was still very warm outside; Little Bubba broke out in a sweat almost immediately. That's just what he does. Big Sis, excited to be outside, ran down the driveway to meet her neighbor-friend, Katie.
Katie is about about 10 years old and Big Sis adores her. She loves playing with Katie, and Katie has adopted a "big sister" role with her, taking very good care of her and paying her a lot of attention even when she has her own friends around.
As Kaylin ran down the driveway towards her, Katie points into our pine island and says, "Ew, look at that big ugly spider". I didn't think much of it since we have an occasional wolf spider around, but they generally don't stay in sight for very long.
"Look at the red on it," she says. "Do you think it's a Black Widow?"
Now she has my attention.
My Wonderful Wife scoops Kaylin up after one look at this spider and asks me to join them at the foot of the driveway to investigate. Barefoot, I run to the place in where the girls are pointing and see a spider the size of a nickle making it's way though our yard. It was an ugly bugger with a black sectional body, what looked like pincers on the front of it, and eight red legs. A very strange looking arachnid. Not a Black Widow, but still dangerous looking, mostly because of the red coloring.
"I hope it isn't poisonous. Kill it." I can't remember if my wonderful wife said that or if it was my inner monologue, but that's all the encouragement I needed. No spider is safe from my wrath.
I run back in the house to put on my bug stomping shoes, some old pair of Nikes I keep in the garage to mow the lawn. Ironically, i have to smack them together to make sure i don't stick my toes into more spiders... nope, nothing in there. Once I'm fully armored, I head back down to the edge of the property where the spider is making its way towards the road. I take aim, and *squish*!
"Is it dead? Are you sure?" I poke around with the toe of my shoe to be sure, and yep, there it is, upside down and curled up in that "dead spider" kind of way.
"You're certain?" Oh yeah, that sucker is dead, dead, dead.
Mission Accomplished. Threat averted. Return to your playtime activities.
I couldn't go back to playtime. I was too busy wondering what the heck that spider was and what it was doing in my yard. Was it really dangerous? Will there be more of them?
I excused myself and ran into the house, planting myself in front of my web browser. I pointed my way to Google and searched for "spider red legs black body". In the millions of results, two catch my eye immediately. I click on the first, and get to a webpage called "What's that Bug". Good start, huh? I'm certain to find answers here. Check it out: http://whatsthatbug.com/red_legged_purseweb_spider.html
Don't feel like reading it? No problem. I quickly found out that I had killed a Red-Legged Purseweb Spider. Not DANGERous, it seems, but actually enDANGERed.
That couldn't be right, could it? I return to the Google web search results and click on the second link, a University of Kentucky site. http://www.uky.edu/Ag/CritterFiles/casefile/spiders/purseweb/purseweb.htm I scroll down to the bottom of the page and, sure enough, that sucker is endangered.
I feel like I am living in the movie The Freshman, when Matthew Broderick thinks that Marlon Brando is actually killing the endangered Kimono Dragon. Except, I really did kill the Kimono Dragon.
Trouble is, if I saw that ugly spider again, I'd probably squish it again.