Newspaper graphic artist threatened by black widow spider

"Spidey"

Ken Grissom

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    ST. MARTINVILLE – Along came a spider and sat down beside her.

    A black widow spider.

    A big black widow spider.

    Melissa Landry, a graphic artist at The Teche News, caught the wiggle of long black legs out of the corner of her eye.

    The spider, with the telltale red hourglass, hung from the electrical conduit feeding her computer, literally peering over her shoulder.

    "Eeeek!" echoed through the composing room.

    Jacques Privat, executive director of Keep St. Martin Beautiful and an inveterate outdoorsman, dashed in and whipped out his World War II German pocket knife while Dustin Robertson, a graphic artist at Impressions in Breaux Bridge, went searching for something to contain the arachnoid.

    Luckily both men happened to be visiting the newspaper when the incident occurred.

    Scouring the kitchen, Robertson found a near-empty 36-ounce plastic jar of Pub Mix, dumped the rest of the snack mix and positioned the container under the now-agitated poisonous spider. Privat, with a deft flick of his blade, flipped the spider, uninjured, into the jar.

    "I've been catching a lot of snakes lately," he said, explaining his cool demeanor,

    "I don't like spiders and snakes," said Landry, a.k.a. Miss Muffet.

    The Teche News is putting the spider up for adoption.