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Paddler
November 11th, 2015, 08:35 AM
From the gig journal, October, 2011:

This fall, the band was hired to provide music and dance for one of the Bigburg social clubs. The theme for this smoker was "Cowboy".

We musicians were fed as soon as the caterer delivered the victuals. We finished eating just as the guests began to arrive. They were tricked out in boots, hats, and bandannas (the only shootin' irons I saw were on the police). Being a dance band, we don't often get to play "dinner music", even for cowboys, and we enjoyed playing a concert set or two while the "wild hombres" made chin music and knocked back a few drinks.

When happy hour ended, the guests went through the buffet line and then sat down to "tie on the feed bag", while we continued to play cowboy mood music. It was then that I saw my first ever drunken spider.

The spider was from one of the larger breeds that inhabit this part of the country. The front half was black, the abdomen was bulbous and covered in coarse, brown hair. These can be quite hideous if you look them in the eyes or if they make a run at you from a dark corner in the cellar.

This particular spider appeared to be intoxicated. Maybe he had walked through a spilled cocktail. Anyway, it was evident that he was a little shamble-footed on his larboard side. I saw him start running from our side of the room and make his way across the dance floor in a long series of ten-inch semicircles. He circled to the left, stopped, made a right turn, circled to the left, stopped, made a right turn, etc. He crossed the entire dance floor like that and disappeared through the kitchen doorway. I was prepared to hear either a scream or a curse-and-stomp, but nay, but nay; the kitchen help were all in the dining room schmoozing the guests. I guess the spider couldn't have been too far in his cups; he knew the safest time to make a break for the kitchen.

I'll ask Tess if she can invent a new dance with the drunken spider theme. Maybe we can compose a tune for it.

MCR>
Abstractor of the Quintessence
Order of the Digital Grail