(The following is a STORY, not an actual account. A note for those of you with imaginations like mine . . .)
I have my own Charlotte. For the past few years, my own spider has spun messages in her web to encourage me each day, as I step into the garage to get my morning Diet Coke out of the spare refrigerator.
Unfortunately, I missed the first message entirely because I grabbed a broom and knocked the web down. It took a while for Charlotte to forgive me for that one.
However, within a few days I noticed the intricate web was re-spun, showing the word T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C. The spider waved her little leg at me, and I smiled.
For the next year and a half she met me with words like:
B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L
F-U-N-N-Y
S-M-A-R-T
It was life affirming. She helped me through some tough times, that little spider.
Then something happened to Charlotte. She entered menopause. I know this by the messages that have started forming in her web during the last few months. The first morning I noticed it was around halloween. I walked into the garage and saw the word W-I-T-C-H sparkling in the middle of her web. Well, I thought, she’s just being holiday appropriate. I waved at her but she was too busy eating to notice.
The next day I saw E-V-I-L. Hmmmm, I thought, perhaps she spelled L-I-V-E backwards. Maybe she was losing it with age.
The words have continued since that time, including:
I-D-I-O-T
M-O-R-O-N
L-O-S-E-R
One day I noticed the word H-O-T with water dripping off of the threads of her web. The words are getting especially short as the weather gets hotter. Yesterday she just had “A” in the middle of the web, or at least what was left of it. Most of it had collapsed under the weight of the water.
This morning I walked out and Charlotte had nothing spun in her web. I noticed that she was eating five flies at once and was watching the little television I used for exercising.
I walked towards her and she held up one leg. That used to be a wave. I’m pretty sure that this time she gave me the finger.