Earlier last week, I noticed a spider web on the driver-side mirror and thought nothing of it. Every day, I’d drive the sixty-four miles from to work and back, and this tough little monkey still manages to hang on for dear life subsisting on the odd gnat that floats by my car. When not out weaving the web or partaking of other arthropods, the spider hides behind the mirror which one would think since the housing is black it would be scorching hot for the little arachnid.

I do not try to mess with the spider or take down the web since in many Asian cultures consider spiders as good luck. My sense of communion and affection for the spider was put to the test when I had my car cleaned in preparation for my road trip. A byzantine process of multi-stage washes then meticulous drying stages orchestrated by a dozen, if not more people, would prove to be nothing to my spider. The side-mirrors do get a good douching and dried with compressed air. Thinking that my eight-legged talisman was lost forever, I felt that my luck had run dry.

Here in Chicago, weeks after seeing the first spider web, tootling down a four-lane expressway… the spider comes out! Sensing that the wind was too strong, it crawled back into the mirror’s housing. I can feel my luck coming back to me.