“She wants a safe place to lay her eggs … “
The other day, a postal worker named Chelle was doing her usual rounds when she saw someone had left a note in one of the mailboxes on her route.
The note read:
“Dear Postal Service … There is a big, beautiful jumping spider living here. Please don’t hurt her! She wants a safe place to lay her eggs.”
Lo and behold, huddled in the corner of the mailbox, there was a little spider. Cassie, the mailbox’s owner, had grown attached to the spider and named her Norma.
“Call me crazy if you want to … But I love the critters most would instantly kill,” Cassie wrote on TikTok.
The next day, when she opened her mailbox, Cassie discovered a response to her note:
“No worries. I love spiders, too.”
Cassie was delighted to find that there was someone out there who understood her soft spot for jumping spiders.
“Thankfully, my mail lady understands my love for the outcasts, and is very careful when she leaves my mail,” Cassie wrote.
Last spring, Norma had her babies in Cassie’s mailbox. This year, Norma decided to return, and is already at work building her egg sac. Cassie is honored that Norma feels safe enough in her mailbox to have her family there.
Jumping spiders like to hide their egg sacs in hidden, secure locations, so it’s actually pretty common for them to set them up in mailboxes.
While some might be scared to see a spider in their mailbox, some people, like Cassie, go out of their way to protect the adorable arachnids.
And for those who might need a little more convincing to love eight-legged animals, Cassie’s video is helping people realize that jumping spiders pose no threat to humans and are simply trying to live.
“Get a new mailbox,” one TikTok commenter wrote. “Norma has squatter’s rights. It’s hers now.”