Author: Sue Young

Today, I noticed a ginger spider sitting on my kitchen worktop hugging a lemon pip. I had squeezed lemons the night before and one pip must have popped out and I hadn’t noticed it. The worktop colour is very similar to the pip colour. Anyway, I blew on Ginger to see if Ginger was alive. Usually when you breathe on insects or spiders, they run for the hills, or dance in the breeze (of your breath). Ginger didn’t move. Is Ginger dead, I thought, or is Ginger just playing dead? I blew on Ginger again and once more for good luck. Nothing. Ginger didn’t move, neither did the pip. Are you calling my bluff? Maybe if I go away and come back again, you might not be there. I decided I would give Ginger some space. Like when a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there, would Ginger leave while no-one was there to experience Ginger’s leaving? So, I went away for a decent amount of time, about fifteen minutes, and when I returned, Lo and Behold, Ginger was indeed gone and so was the pip! Ginger took the pip and fooled me good and proper, called my bluff. Of course, it could have gone two ways for Ginger. She/he could have been bludgeoned to death while he/she played dead, or was carelessly and fatally scooped into the sink, or into a dustbin. Ginger could have met with several horrible deaths, but instead, trusted fate, took a chance, took a risk and played dead, and it paid off. A lesson to us I think. And Ginger and Lemon do go together.