Spider story

The Peanut Queen's post today was about spiders, which resuled in me thinking about this story:
Spidermobile

I have always done a little side work on cars. Buy one, fix it up, sell it buy one a little better, etc.

I was working in a printed circuit board assembly area. The area had about 30 women, and three men. It was my first time working with women otside the back seat of the car. It was different.

One of the cute younger ones was Jacki. She was a bit of a scatterbrain, very unfocused, but fun to work with.

She had this 1955 Pontiac 4dr with low original miles. It was in pretty good shape, but she hated it because it wasn't cool.

She came in to work one day, late, pale as a sheet and shaking. I asked her what was up and she told this tale of being run off of the road by a drunk, ending up in the median, and having to be towed out. Everyone was very sympathetic, asking her if she was OK and was her car OK. She said everything was ok, she was just shaken up.

Something about the way she opened her eyes extra wide while telling this tale told me that she was not being truthful.

I cornered her later in the day in a quiet corner, and asked her what had happened.

She admitted the story was a fabrication. What had really happened was she was driving down the freeway and noticed a blur in front of her eyes. When she focused her eyes on it, it turned out to be a spider.

Of course she covered her face with both hands, and the car ended up in the median. I promised not to tell. The statute of limitations ran out some time ago.

I soon after the spider incident I bought the car from her for $75.

One fall day I was in the car driving to work. I was wearing a leather hi-country coat with a sheepskin lining. It was the first time I had worn the coat in six months. It felt like something was inside the arm of the coat.

The "something" turned out to be a spider the size of a quarter, who crawled out of the sleeve and across the back of my left hand. Although it startled me, all I did was let go of the wheel with my right hand and reach out and with as much force as I could generate, flicked him with my middle finger. He hit the winshield with a satifying splat.

Unfortunately he fell down the defroster vent, so I couldn't tell if he was dead or not. I drove the rest of tha way to work with one eye on the road and one eye watching for movement.

I never found the spider, and for a couple of weeks drove around prepared for the worst. I mean he could be out recruiting a bunch of his little spider buddies with his tale of woe. They might even be plotting revenge.

I fixed a couple of things and sold the car.

It had nothing to do with the spider situation.

Honest.