Betsy's Fate

So it wasn't just me overwhelmed by those last pictures. All day after posting, I fought the urge to hyperventilate into a paper bag. The spider jar had been retired on the back porch, and of the six back-facing windows we have on this floor, I opted for a day of gloom rather than risk a peek from any one set of blinds opened. I only felt better after scrounging together my nine months' pregnant energy and bathing the twins, scrubbing the kitchen floor, vacuuming, showering, and piling my family into the car to head to my doctor's appointment (no baby yet folks). But of course, as soon as they saw their dad, the number one thought on everybody's mind was the little pet L & M so lovingly named...Betsy.
Though I wanted nothing to do with setting Betsy free by the lake, Ryan and I had negotiated a plan. He would grab the jar while I waited in the car with the girls, then would take the girls to the lake while I ordered and waited for a pizza at home. However on Ryan's way back from the porch, a half-wince, half-frown, half-busting up with laughter look on his face told a fateful, yet comical story. "Girls," he said, "I don't think Betsy is feeling well."
Don't worry, no more graphic pictures. And I will spare the details of what was in the jar, because I didn't look in the jar. But it's safe to say that this morbid turn in events parallels the ever-popular children's book, Charlotte's Web, in which Charlotte becomes old and sick and takes a final bow, leaving the legacy of a rambunctious new generation of spiders. At least that is my desperate attempt to cast a hint of poetry into the previous images, now burned into my brain and yours. And thanks to tonight's Lake Pflugerville at sunset intervention, the hideous offspring of Betsy can now build a new life elsewhere, anywhere, but the Barlow garage. My only regret is that we told the twins we would visit often.