One of the VPs at work found a tarantula in his back yard and made it a pet.  He keeps it in a glass cage on his desk.  The spider’s name is “Fred.”

Recently he found another spider, whom his daughter named “Prinze.” He brought Prinze to the office and put it in Fred’s cage just to see what would happen.

What happened was: Fred and Prinze started fighting.

Fred versus Prinze: They’ve got legs, and they know how to use them.

We watched the fight for a few minutes.  Then they stopped fighting, so we went back to work.

The next day, the VP sent us an email: “Prinze appears to be mulch.  It happened overnight. Fred is covering the body with gravel.”

Here’s what we don’t know: did Prinze die a horrible, violent death because Fred was protecting his territory?

Or did Prinze die an ecstatic, wonderful death because they actually mated and Fred (who may be female) finished up by biting his head off?

The fact that we don’t know seems like a life lesson of some kind. But damned if I know what it is.* Do you?

*Other than never have carnal relations with a tarantula, but I pretty much knew that already.