I had something unusual happen to me this afternoon. Something that’s never happened before, something I have never even heard of in my over-40 years on this planet…

When I went for my usual 12:30 smoke break, my lighter wouldn’t light. It’s a disposable one, and it was sparking just fine so the flint wasn’t gone. I could see their was still fluid in it, too. Sometimes a cheapo lighter won’t light when it is too cold, but it was 10 C out, so that wasn’t the problem either.

I kept trying, as you do, while looking around for a fellow smoker to bum a light from if my lighter was truly dead. One two three four five six… suddenly there was a glob of something sticky and wet on my sparking-thumb. It looked like a bloody blackened booger (bogey).

“What the fuck?” said I, as I wiped it off on the wall. On further inspection, there was something slimy and brown on the roller wheel of my lighter. I had a tissue in my pocket and wiped the goop off, and as I did so I saw something inside my lighter.

In there. (Chapstick tube for scale)

Now, I’ve found pocket-lint in that little space, but I have never seen legs before.

Legs that once belonged to a spider that got sucked up into the wheel and smushed onto my thumb.

I have to wonder how it got in there, and when. Overnight seems most plausible, which means it may or may not have survived a lot of small fires before I sparked it to death. But I suppose it could have crawled inside in the hour since my last cig. Wee spidereen could have fallen into my hi-vis vest pocket, and decided to hide in the smallest place possible.

But in any case: I had a spider just inches from my eyes, nose and mouth that could have – should have! – jumped out to safety onto my face.

If that won’t make any arachnophobic smokers quit, I don’t know what will!

Sadly, I’m rather fond of spiders, and my smokey-treats.