This is Digby Pancake. Have you made any new friends lately? Do you want to?
You all know that my best friend is Peanut Butter Brickle.
But even I like to branch out. To talk to new individuals here and there and everywhere. I don’t always like the ones I talk to, but I respect them for who they are. And I won’t know if I like them until I talk to them. How do you make new friends?
The persons don’t know this. But Jim The Jumping Spider has been in our house on wheels for awhile now. They haven’t noticed him because he is so small. They haven’t talked to him like Brickle and I have. They just met him. And yet, I feel like I have known him forever.
Do you have friends like that? Some you just meet and feel like you have always known them. Jim The Jumping Spider is small, but big on conversation.
He tells me how most persons are scared of spiders. That’s why he hid from our persons for so long. He said persons are not so nice to spiders. Mostly because they just don’t understand them.
And he said that it is like that in the whole world. Persons are afraid of others because they don’t know anything about them. And they don’t try to learn. Because it is easier to do that. And to just think that they are more important.
The thing is, I have found that Jim The Jumping Spider is just as important as me. As Brickle. As any living thing.
He tries to just live every day. Don’t we all do that? But some have it harder like Jim The Jumping Spider. Because not only are they trying to live, but they are trying to also survive because of others and their ignorance.

Jim The Jumping Spider learned pretty quickly that our persons meant him no harm. He now lives in our bathroom where he can jump at them from the mirror. Or the counter. They watch for him and are careful not to disturb him. Little do they know he dances because he is so happy that they are nice to him.
And Jim spends his days going in and out in his secret road that only he knows about.
How long will Jim The Jumping Spider be with us? We don’t know. Just like we don’t know how long we have with anyone. Making new friends is just as important as keeping the old ones. Because we will only get better and be better when we know better.
And what better ones to learn from than others like Jim The Jumping Spider?
-Digby Pancake