By Sue Murphy
There’s a kindergarten song that starts out, “There’s a spider on the floor, on the floor …” With each verse, the pretend spider makes it farther up the child’s body until it hops off the top of his head and the song starts all over again. That’s the way it is in kindergarten. The songs never end.
I thought about that the other day when I looked down to see a tiny spider web under the emergency brake pedal in my car. Understand that this is the same car that I sit in, feet in that exact same location, most every day of my life, which made the spider spotting so disconcerting. I mean, the spider could just as easily have decided to venture farther and make a side trip up my shoelaces.
I know how he got there. I roll the car windows down every time I pull into the garage, mostly to air out any lingering drive-thru odors, although I don’t know why, since French fries and chocolate chip cookies both smell delicious. Still, it seems like a good idea to start at an olfactory zero each and every day.
So, like I said, I know how the spider got in. What I don’t understand is “why.” The point of building a web, as I recall, is to trap insect prey. My car floorboards don’t seem like a place that would see much insect foot traffic, but then I didn’t know the spider was there, either, so I could be wrong. Sure, occasionally, a fly or moth gets trapped in the car and takes an unplanned trip to a far-off location like Publix (far off for a fly, I’m guessing). When I open the car door, the fly zooms out and begins life in a new locale. For some reason, moths take a little more coaxing, but in both instances, their disappearance must serve as a cautionary tale to their buddies as they gather around the porch light. “And he was never seen again…”
I don’t think any of these little critters set out to stow away in my vehicle. More likely, when the door slammed shut, panic set in. Flies and moths always react by hanging onto the windshield for dear life. For some reason, my spider friend decided to make himself at home.
Maybe he didn’t intend to stay there underneath the brake pedal. Maybe the web was simply a nervous gesture, a bit of familiarity to calm his little eight-legged nerves. Or maybe he figured, “What the heck?” and thought he might as well try to catch an in-flight snack.
I didn’t see the spider skitter when I vacuumed up the web. I have to hope that he made a daring escape somewhere along the way. He may be living a more urban adventure in the dentist’s parking lot off Montevallo Road. He might be dodging traffic at the post office on Highway 119. Or maybe he got lucky. Maybe he hopped out and found himself at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens, where he is now living the high life in the shrubs and trees with a bunch of new vagabond friends.
I guess I’ll never know, but I am happy to have been part of the journey. Even happier that he did not set out up the Nike pathway, through the Lee Jeans pass and up either of the 100% cotton sleeves to the pinnacle of Mt. Shampoo-Rinse-Repeat, where he would have most definitely been sent (with a scream) back to the floor to start all over again.
