In 1932, Louise Thompson noticed that a small spider had gotten into her alarm clock. That wasn’t all that surprising, but she noticed that the spider was trying to spin a web between the hour hand and the minute hand, which was an impossible task because they moved and tore the web. But the spider persisted in its mission. Thompson and her husband kept an eye on the clock for days, thinking the spider would eventually give up, but she didn’t. Word got around, the media was interested, and the next thing you know, the spider was a celebrity. The clock was taken to the University of Akron for study. People all over the world were following the saga of the little spider, and John A. Twamley of Rochester, New York, wrote a poem in its honor.
In the city known as Akron,
In the state of O-hio,
On a clock face there's a spider
Spinning web threads to and fro.
Back and forth he keeps on going
From clock hand unto clock hand,
And why his threads should keep abreaking
He of course can't understand...
When we men meet with reverses
We should keep this thought in stock:
That 'til death we should keep striving
Like the spider in the clock
The Akron Humane Society wanted the spider to be freed, while scientists said it would die outside in the Ohio winter. Read the whole story of the little spider who became a media sensation at About. -via Nag on the Lake