Pictures By Alan

2005-05-14 Passenger Spider

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This story is pretty strange. But I assure you it is true.

It isn't uncommon for me to find a spiderweb somewhere on my car in the morning. But, some months back, I began to notice that pretty much every morning there was a new web constructed around my driver side mirror. For a long time, this just seemed kind of odd. Then one day, sitting at a stoplight on my way to work, I happened to notice the spider -- a large spider -- climbing around on the web. I realized that, somehow or other, this thing had made a permanent home in my car. I looked for a while, and found that it had a little nest under the bracket that holds the mirror.

I know almost nothing about spiders. This one is remarkably tenacious and long-lived. All day it sleeps under the mirror; at night it comes out and makes webs. I have seen it working several times when I went to the car at night. It always returns under the mirror when the car starts moving. Once, parked under a tree in the evening, it somehow managed to string a web all the way up to the branches of the tree, probably eight feet above. How on Earth did it pull that off? I had to break it to go home.

It has been with me for some months. It went with me to Parish Weekend, it visited my brother in San Antonio. I didn't know spiders were so clever. Or so long-lived. Or so prone to stay in one place for so long.

I'm trying to think of a name for it. Charlotte leaps to mind of course, but that's so obvious.

Alan Bryant 2005-May-16

01 - Under Mirror

02 - Spider

03 - Spider

04 - Web

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