And Along Came a Spider...

I have a spider in my car. Its about the size, with legs, of a quarter, perhaps a bit smaller. Eustace, as I have named "him", builds a web every night, which I tear down in the morning. I am a spider fan. Spiders are given leeway in my home. Of course, I don't have Brown Recluses and Black Widows running around either. I just try to pitch them outside where they belong. This is a fairly young spider because I've seen larger versions of the same species on my porch. Eustace is an orb weaver. He makes the big, symmetrical web. Eustace came to live in my car because he chose the wrong place to sleep. I park my car under the 60 foot Ash tree in my front yard. He built a web between the tree and the side mirror on my car. Sunday when I took HB and TLC to see, what else, Spiderman 2, Eustace was asleep under the side mirror. I saw him but figured the wind would blow him off and he would scurry away. Wrong. Eustace held on all the way to the theater about 10 miles away. I was driving, at one point, 60 mph. Tough little dude. When we came out of the theater, Eustace is still under the mirror. Sigh. I thought maybe he was dead and had just wrapped himself up in the web as a casket or something. Imagine our surprise when Eustace releases his spinneret and swings into the car. HB hit the backseat. I'm telling the boys to calm down.. its just a spider. Yeah, I thought that until Eustace decided to scurry across my leg, at which point he was rudely brushed away. (shudder) When I got the car stopped he had disappeared into the bottomless black hole of the passenger side floor. I haven't attempted to find the floor on that side for about 3 or 4 months so... plenty of places for a spider to hide. Since then, I have had a new spiderweb in my car every morning yet Eustace has remained elusive. Until this morning. He made his appearance as I'm threading my way along in bumper to bumper traffic. I see him out of the corner of my eye as he dangles from the passenger side visor. Either a piece of web remained or he performed some spider acrobatics and ended up on the rearview mirror. He then scurried back to the visor and disappeared from sight. I suspect now he is hiding above the visor, waiting for dusk so he can rebuild his web. I've wanted to crack the window in hopes he will crawl away into the wilds of my front yard but the threat of rain has prevented this. Tonight though, Eustace and I will have a show down. He will die in my car, either from lack of food or the heat and as much as I admire him, I really don't want him dropping into my hair in rush hour traffic. I'm afraid I would have to smoosh him. Heeeere spidey, spidey, spidey....