goodbye, spider

For the past few weeks, I’ve been driving around with a spider. The spider spun a web between the side mirror on the driver’s side and the bottom of the car door. I didn’t try to get rid of the spider for a few reasons:

1. I always lacked proper getting-rid-of-spider equipment in my car, and I didn’t want to get my hand dirty.

2. It took me awhile to realize that the spider was living behind the mirror, or at least retreating there when the car was in motion.

3. I kind of wanted to see how big the web would get. Would it eventually cover my car?

4. It was rather calming to watch the spider work when I was stuck in traffic. Sometimes I would talk to it. I guess I was really talking to myself but it made me feel a little less crazy to be talking to a spider.

5. Sometimes when we were stopped at a traffic light, the spider would think we were stopped for good. So spidey would come out and start working on the web, but then we’d start going again, and the spider would have to hang for dear life to a strand of the web as it struggled to get back to the refuge of the mirror. I found this endlessly entertaining.

6. I couldn’t help but hope that this was the beginning of some fantastic children’s story, along the lines of “Charlotte’s Web” of course, and the spider was about to do something truly magical or save my life by spinning out the word “Stop!” before some reckless driver hit me.

7. I’ve been going to yoga class lately at this place where one of the teachers makes a big deal about carrying bugs outside instead of killing them when they get into the studio. How could I make eye contact with her if I recklessly killed a spider? I’m not saying I’m going to go out of my way to carry bugs in my apartment outside but at the very least that spider wasn’t in my way.

8. The spider tactfully kept the web from obstructing the view from my side mirror.

I guess those are the main reasons. But today I went up to get my car serviced at Toyota of Atlanta (which by the by, is nowhere in the vicinity of Atlanta) and some serviceman took it upon himself to destroy the web, and I’m guessing, the spider. The serviceman also took it upon himself to change my seat (I understand scooting it back so you can get your legs in there to drive, pal, but let’s leave my lumbar alignment alone), my radio station (don’t listen to the radio when you’re fixing my car!) and I even think he changed the settings that affect how much noise comes out of each of the speakers (see the previous parentheses! Those settings are hard to get just right!)

So for these crimes I’m at least hoping that my spider put up a really good fight and bit the serviceman. I also wouldn’t mind if the spider worked up the stamina to go into the waiting room to bite all the cashiers, who did not call my name when my car was ready, forcing me to sit there for a lot longer than I needed to. But I guess it was okay. I was entertained by this woman sitting near me who was calling all these people who work for her. The woman’s job I guess is arranging the in-store demonstrations that you see in grocery stores sometimes. So she’d call up a person to see if they could do a demo, and then she’d rattle off the store number (i.e. Publix 548) like it meant something, and then if the person hadn’t heard of it, she’d give them step-by-step directions from their home. I found that part a little creepy but I guess she tries to schedule workers to stores very close to their homes…maybe she pays their mileage or something. She’d also try to explain a little bit about what product they’d be showcasing, which is how I learned that there’s some gum coming out that’s supposed to curb a person’s appetite. Neither the woman nor I think it will work.

Every time she called a different person (and bear in mind I was there for quite a long time), the woman would explain that she was sorry that there hadn’t been many jobs lately, but that they were about to head into the busy demonstration season, which I guess coincides with school starting. So get ready! The in-store demonstrations are coming!

I’m sad, because I think my spider would have really enjoyed listening to me talk about them.