The Surprise Houseguest

I didn’t invite her.  She just showed up at my front door one day about a month ago.  She had all her belongings with her and simply made herself at home…right there…on my front door.  She was suspended between the screen door and the brick wall in all her eerie, punk-rock-like beauty – a writing spider.  Her web was a perfectly designed and executed piece of art. 

It is not very original, but I named her Charlotte after E.B. White’s Charlotte.  After a few days, I imagine that she knows it is me when I open the inner door to check on her.  She occasionally is startled when my husband approaches.  Maybe she recognizes that he is the one who wields the leaf blower way too close to her web.  And what a housekeeper she is…Charlotte keeps her web pristine, making quick repairs after her prey is caught, cocooned and turned into lunch.

Folklore says that if she writes your name you will die soon.  I prefer the alternative story that says if a woman watches the writing spider weaving in the dew of the early morning, she will see the name of the man she is going to marry.  I’ve been checking her web every morning when I come down to start the tea.  So far it looks like my next husband will be WWWVVWWVVV.  I wonder what country he will be from with a name like that?  She writes the same name every day, so I guess she is pretty convinced.

I can’t open the screen door without destroying her web and facing the possibility that she will leave for good.  The furniture delivery men looked at me askance when I told them they had to carry my recliner around the house, across the deck, through the porch and in the back door because I didn’t wish them to disturb the spider that was living on my front porch.  My guess is if they had seen her, they wouldn’t have hesitated to make a detour.  She is huge!  In fact, I am a little scared of those creepy, long legs.  If she is still around at Halloween, I won’t need to pull out the plastic spider I usually put on the front door.

As the days turn cooler, I soon expect to find an empty web, ragged from the weather and no longer awaiting reconstruction.  Charlottewill have lived most of her adult life on my front porch.  I thank my Creator for the miracle of this surprise guest.  She brought amazement and wonder to us in her brief season here.

We are on the lookout for her egg sac that will be filled with hundreds of babies.  I hope that as in Charlotte’s Web, only 3 will choose to stay.