Sweet Hitchhiker

I noticed a big spider on my side window as I was pulling out of my driveway this morning. I thought it would be blown safely off as I wound slowly a mile and a half down my road to the highway, but to my surprise, it was still there as I pulled out onto Hwy 70. As I sped up, I noticed it shot a strand of its silk onto another area of the window as if to anchor itself. I slowed down in town and thought it would scramble away as I stopped for one light after another. It was still there, though, as I merged onto Hwy 51 and then down J to Hwy 47, where I had to travel 25 more miles.

Every few minutes I would glance at it, gritting my teeth for the expectation that it would be gone. But though its legs blew this way and that by the force of the wind, it still clung on to the same spot on the window. I reflected on what the spider must feel like - was it fun? A rush? A shit-what-did-I-get-myself-into moment? And what could I compare the experience to in human terms - being on one of those amusement park rides where the cetrifugal force sticks you to the side of the wall as the floor drops below you feet - or something the astronauts or deep sea divers are forced to go through before they take off on their adventures?

The spider clung on through the slowdown at Lake Tomahawk, when several giant semis passed in oncoming traffic, through my road-rage-ist passing a slow old person who had had his left blinker on for 5 miles, and even as I swerved to avoid a vole skittering across the highway. This spider was determined.

To keep myself from freaking out too much and just pulling to the side of the road and blowing it off into the woods, I made up a story about it needing a change of scenery. Maybe it got bored with life in Minocqua and needed to party with a hipper crowd of spiders in Rhinelander or Madison.

When I was almost at work, I stopped at the light right before I turn off the highway though, and the spider scrambled down the window and onto the side of the door. When I started up again, it blew off onto the road.

I can only hope that it found what it was looking for.