Here's a true story that's been with me for over 50 years:
My favorite car my parents ever owned was a Ford Falcon. Just a great car. The thing I liked most was that it had a bright red leather interior. Could have been faux leather...I don't recall. But just this brilliant crimson interior. One day we were riding along and I was sitting in the back passenger seat looking out the window. Somehow, I noticed a movement at my left elbow and I looked down. In the leather upholstery was a tiny hole and inside that tiny hole I could see a spider...a black, black, black, black spider of the most amazing obsidian hue. In retrospect, it was probably a black widow. But the spider kept coming to the edge of the little hole and peering out, it's gleaming legs barely visible.
Then it hit me. Sometimes (this was the days before every car had factory-air as a given) flies would settle beyond the back seat and hunker down between the glass and the leather. I looked. Sure enough there was a big, fat fly back there. I caught the lazy bastard without killing it and...just out of curiosity...I offered it to the spider. Just held it up there at the entrance to the tiny hole.
Those bitch-ass spider legs REACHED out faster than light and grabbed that fucking fly! Took that sumbitch right on back there into the shadows.
Next day, I rode along once more and the first thing I did was catch a damned fly in the back window. Once again...I offered it up to the spider. Same reaction. SNAG!
I felt like I was doing a good deed. Also...and this was the neatest part...I had a pet spider! How freaking cool was that?
This went on almost every day for about two weeks. One day I caught a fly and placed it at the hole. Nothin'. I pushed the fly in a little closer. No reaction. I realized the spider was gone. Kaput. Fled the scene of the crime.
Whatever.
Not long after that my dad hit a whitetail buck while driving the Falcon at about 75mph on the Interstate. They got the car home somehow. I remember seeing the car in the back yard, the grill mashed in, the hood partially buckled, deer hair and deer blood all the frack over the damned thing. I'm not sure how they got it back to Decatur, but the insurance folk totaled it out and that was the end of the Ford Falcon. I never did get to see if any tiny black spiders hatched out of that tiny spider's den in the red leather upholstery.
My favorite car my parents ever owned was a Ford Falcon. Just a great car. The thing I liked most was that it had a bright red leather interior. Could have been faux leather...I don't recall. But just this brilliant crimson interior. One day we were riding along and I was sitting in the back passenger seat looking out the window. Somehow, I noticed a movement at my left elbow and I looked down. In the leather upholstery was a tiny hole and inside that tiny hole I could see a spider...a black, black, black, black spider of the most amazing obsidian hue. In retrospect, it was probably a black widow. But the spider kept coming to the edge of the little hole and peering out, it's gleaming legs barely visible.
Then it hit me. Sometimes (this was the days before every car had factory-air as a given) flies would settle beyond the back seat and hunker down between the glass and the leather. I looked. Sure enough there was a big, fat fly back there. I caught the lazy bastard without killing it and...just out of curiosity...I offered it to the spider. Just held it up there at the entrance to the tiny hole.
Those bitch-ass spider legs REACHED out faster than light and grabbed that fucking fly! Took that sumbitch right on back there into the shadows.
Next day, I rode along once more and the first thing I did was catch a damned fly in the back window. Once again...I offered it up to the spider. Same reaction. SNAG!
I felt like I was doing a good deed. Also...and this was the neatest part...I had a pet spider! How freaking cool was that?
This went on almost every day for about two weeks. One day I caught a fly and placed it at the hole. Nothin'. I pushed the fly in a little closer. No reaction. I realized the spider was gone. Kaput. Fled the scene of the crime.
Whatever.
Not long after that my dad hit a whitetail buck while driving the Falcon at about 75mph on the Interstate. They got the car home somehow. I remember seeing the car in the back yard, the grill mashed in, the hood partially buckled, deer hair and deer blood all the frack over the damned thing. I'm not sure how they got it back to Decatur, but the insurance folk totaled it out and that was the end of the Ford Falcon. I never did get to see if any tiny black spiders hatched out of that tiny spider's den in the red leather upholstery.
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| Not the model my parents owned (theirs wasn't a convertible), but that was the interior color, by Jove. |
An amazing story. I never heard of anyone hand-feeding a spider before.
ReplyDeleteIt was both easy and cool as shit. I just held out the living fly and...BOOM! That spider reached out and SNATCHED that bitch-ass fly.
ReplyDeleteI remember that in our smokey youth there was a period during which the word "snagged" won easy laughs, for some reason no sober adult at this remove can probably fathom. He SNAGGED it! She SNAGGED it! That spider SNAGGED it!
ReplyDeleteI think it was a McGregorism.
ReplyDeleteI wondered if you'd recall our laughing at the word. I believe you're right about its parentage.
ReplyDelete