|
sunshine jen: The Car Spider
Last weekend, when I opened my car's back door to put groceries in the back seat, I discovered a spider web just inside the door. Those tiny clear threads weren't visible from the outside, and my groceries almost got entangled in them. Fortunately, I spotted the web in time to not destroy it or get spider string all over my soy milk. But yes, there is a spider web in my car.
I don't have any spider phobias. I don't go eeek when I see a spider. When a spider wanders into the house, I let it crawl onto a piece of paper for safe passage back to the garden.
I think my lack of arachnophobia goes back to childhood. At a very young age, I learned that spiders eat all those annoying bugs like mosquitoes and biting flies. Also, spiders don't eat people. Sure there's the black widow spider, but how often would a North American Urban Intellectual (scientific name: A-trainius brainius) meet a black widow spider? Sure, there was that movie in the nineties called ARACHNOPHOBIA about killer spiders, but that was just a movie.
To me, the ultimate cool spider story is Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. Charlotte is a spider (Debbie Reynolds was the voice of Charlotte in the animated movie version) who befriends Wilbur, a pig, and saves him from slaughter by weaving pro-pig slogans into her web. My favorite slogan was 'some pig'. Charlotte the spider is wise and creative. She also has the same name as my mother. Spiders can't be all bad if they have the same name as your mother.
So spiders are good, and one is currently living in my car. We drive around LA together---the spider and me. We have goofy adventures---the spider and me. LaLaLaLaLaaaa----the spider and me.
But this is not just any spider. This is a super spider. No, it is not the marketing wiz that Charlotte was. No, it is not a radioactive spider whose bite will enable me to climb walls and spin a web anytime. No, my super spider is a folk singer.
It's really mellowing to have a folk singing spider in the car. It's impossible to get road rage while a spider sits on the dash board as it strums a tiny guitar and belts out Dylan's 'A Hard Rain's A Gonna Fall', then segues into a medley of 'Puff the Magic Dragon', 'Amazing Grace' and 'Eleanor Rigby'. Pretty amazing stuff.
The spider is quite proficient on the guitar and is able to play with six legs at once. Its voice has a range of several octaves and quivers on the high notes. Occasionally the spider even does a spider dance across the dashboard.
Then, this morning, the spider told me that it had to leave me to tour with the Finn Brothers. I pulled into the parking lot for In and Out Burgers and watched the spider totter off to the hedge with his guitar on his back.
"Damn those Finn Brothers!" I said as a tear formed in my eye. I will miss my car spider, but I know I can not hold the spider back. A talent like the spider's must be shared with the whole world. I don't hate Tim and Neil. They will take good care of the spider. And I'll buy their new album when it comes out.
|
|
|
