I recently had the opportunity to be a chaperone on my daughter’s 4th grade overnight field trip. It was a culmination of the California History they have been studying this year. We started with a tour of the Mission San Juan Capistrano and from there found our digs at the Lazy W Ranch, hidden in the scenic hills off the Ortega Highway.
In my charge was a cabin full of eight 9- and 10-year-old girls.
After an adventurous day of hands-on learning, we were getting ready to snuggle into our sleeping bags on our respective bunks.
I forget now who spotted it first.
It was no itsy-bitsy spider, but a huge black 50-cent-piece-sized visitor clinging to the ceiling. We all had the same dilemma. No one, including me, wanted to turn off the lights, uncertain of the spider’s intentions. We had no way of knowing towards which bunk he (or she) may be headed.
We all stared up at the spider. The girls waiting for me – the chaperone, the mom, the adult – to act or give direction.
Finally I said, “OK, we need a mom who is smarter than me.”
The girls didn’t miss a beat. A few in unison, immediately answered, “Mrs. Weber!”
They were right.
“Yes, good idea – go get her.”
Two girls volunteered to leave the cabin to find the smart mom while I stayed behind with the other hostages.
Mrs. Weber is a no-nonsense woman with a dry sense of humor. She has a beautiful, professorial presence and is one of those women who seems prepared for anything, like appearing on “Jeopardy” or finding her way off a deserted island. She does not condone any baloney from kids – or parents. She doesn’t even condone baloney in sandwiches. She knows how to cook with Swiss chard. She actually has a natural disaster preparedness kit.
Mrs. Weber came into our cabin and took a few moments to study the spider. Apparently she didn’t share the neurotic vision I would have had standing directly under a spider that it would fall on my face. She was inspecting it and announced that there was no red mark on its abdomen – it was not a black widow. She then went out and returned with a stick, climbed on one of the top bunks, leaned over, reaching her arm out and delicately pushed the spider off the ceiling.
I did nothing but wince as it landed on the ground. Mrs. Weber climbed down the bunk, still wielding the thick stick. Unfazed, she gently nudged the spider and it started to move. Then she used the stick to sort of herd the spider towards the door of the cabin and out into the darkness of the night.
It was not on the itinerary along with panning for gold and building a Native American shelter. But get women and girls together under one roof, and there is always a moment of sisterhood.
To almost quote Forest Gump, “I may not be a smart [mom] but I know what love is.”
Yep, that’s my no nonsense daughter.