There once was a spider that lived in my car.

I noticed it as I was driving home from work one day, just hanging on a shimmery silken thread in the corner of my windshield. At first I didn't know what it was, because it was a really strange-looking spider. Its body was black with a white shell covered in black markings that looked like a skull and crossbones. In its own way it was absolutely beautiful, like a tiny pirate that had boarded my ship.

After the initial surprise, I didn't mind it riding with me. I had an SUV with seating for 8, and I was always just about the only cargo (human or otherwise) that I toted around. So it was kind of nice to have a co-pilot for awhile, even if it was a spider. Because although I'm decidedly a girly-girl, I think spiders are super cool.

We rode home together that afternoon, each of us thinking our own thoughts. When I pulled into my driveway and gathered my things, I thought that it would probably be the last time I saw that spider. And then I went inside and promptly forgot about it. Life rushed in to fill the void. Or in my case, cable TV.

The next morning as I started my car, I looked up and there it was. My spider had spun a tiny web in the same corner of my windshield. And there it waited, as if some other insect was unwittingly buzzing around the interior of my now booby-trapped car. It made me smile to think that a little spider could have such big hopes.

Sitting in traffic, I wondered what it was thinking. I thought it probably wanted me to turn the music down (it seemed like that kind of arachnid). I thought it might find it strange to see the world flashing past without having the slightest inkling of what it all meant. And I thought it might be lonely for its family. I imagined its little baby spiders waiting for it at home.

Of course I knew that spiders don't have ears, don't care for their young and almost certainly would take no notice of freeway traffic if given the opportunity. But there I was anyway, anthropomorphizing away, when it occurred to me that I was that little spider. I sat in my tiny corner of the world and watched life whizzing by and seemed incapable of understanding it or hearing any of the lessons I was supposed to be learning.

So when I got home that evening, I asked my husband to save my spider from certain starvation and put it on our front porch, where it would most assuredly fit in a little better. And of course he complied (it was one of his finer qualities).

My arms and hands were full with my laptop and my purse and the lunch hour's retail purchases, so I went inside and didn't get to see where my car spider ended up. I tell myself that it's still out there, trying to spin something beautiful in a world it doesn't comprehend.