Lost the Beard, Found a Friend

I shaved my beard this morning. Well, let’s be honest, it wasn’t really a beard. Just a moustache and little goatee. Clean-shaved again. Wow. Different. New. Look at my face in the mirror, see my chin and my lips. My face is so different without it. Funny, that. I could have said, “My face looks so different with a beard.” It’s the little things.

While I was tossing away the whiskers, I came across a tiny spider in my bathroom. I’ve had a ton of ants in recent days (looking for water), and there he is, catching them in his little web.

My first thought was to kill him. But, then, I thought about how lonely he must be down there with nobody to talk to. So, I asked him his name.

“You can’t pronounce it,” he said.

“All right. Give me a name I can pronounce.”

“Anthony,” he said.

And that’s how I met my new little friend, Anthony. He kills ants. Whenever I find one, I pick it up, and drop it off for him. His web is just in front of this tiny hole in the plaster, just where the floor meets the wall. The ant gets caught in the web, he comes out of his little hole, and does his work.

“Thanks,” he says.

“Don’t mention it,” I tell him.

He’s spinning away. “Like the look, by the way,” he says, still spinning.

I smile and get ready for my Thursday game. I’m playing a… oh. Wait. That’s right. Secret for right now. More later.

PS: Anthony could use more ants. If you want to send him some, feel free.