EDITOR’S CORNER
This morning I stumbled out the door on the way to my car to head for work and encountered something that shows up frequently at my house.
An ambitious spider had spent much of the night constructing an intricate web between the garage door and my wife’s van.
That’s exactly the space I must traverse to get to my car.
I, of course, blundered into it.
After much flailing about, I freed myself of all the sticky strings, opened my car door and plopped into the seat.
As I did, something small, gray and wiggly flew from my shoulder into the air conditioning vent just to the left of the steering wheel.
It was, of course, the spider.
And I had one of those moments of decision.
It wouldn’t particularly bother me to have a spider crawling around inside my car. I don’t think it was the poisonous kind. It didn’t have the black widow’s signature hourglass and it was not brown like the brown recluse.
At least it didn’t look brown in the tenth of a second it took to fly by my left ear.
However, there is someone with whom I share my life, and who frequently rides in my car, who is not so charitable toward our little eight-legged friends.
Sue, my wife, has been known to stare down snakes, pit bulls and an occasional insurance salesman.
But as for spiders, well we once started out on a memorable trip to Austin which concluded rather quickly just the other side of the Alcoa turnoff when my wife abandoned ship.
I mean she bailed to the highway’s shoulder and was heading for the woods before I ascertained the crisis.
A spider.
Yes, I found it and ejected it and Sue returned to the car sometime that afternoon.
So, in the case last week, I figured I had three choices.
No. 1—Leave the spider in the car and tell her about it.
No.2—Leave the spider in the car and not tell her about it.
No. 3—Tear the car apart piece by piece, no matter how long it takes or h0w much it costs, to get that spider out before my wife gets in the car again.
As everyone knows, who is married, or has ever been married, that actually means I only had one choice.
No. 3.
I could see him (or her) in the AC vent. He was sort of scrambling around with a “what happened?” look on his face.
I know. I can’t prove a spider has a face but the ones in the Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings movies had faces and Hollywood certainly wouldn’t lie to us, would they?
And I imagine the look on his face meant: “What happened? One second I was resting in the center of this magnificent construction I just created and the next I’m homeless and there’s cold air blowing down my collar.”
I imagine spiders have col...oh, never mind.
(Confession: We have both actually left webs up for days because they really are impressive works of creation. One of us admires and appreciates the amount of effort they require and the other hopes the web is big enough to hold a cat).
So I looked around for something to get him out of there with.
I opened the door and took off my glasses.
Then I poked one end into the vent, somehow edged it around behind the spider, fully believing this would not work, and pulled.
The spider flew out the door!
I’m so proud of myself. Now, I need a favor from you. Please don’t tell my wife about this.
Ummm, why am I itching and there’s a big red welt on my neck?
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