Last spring I would go out to my car every morning to find a web spun between the driver-side outside mirror and door handle, which I would have to break in order to get in the car. I thought the spider would get the hint eventually and move to other quarters, but it persisted (must have been Scottish), to the point where it even started building the web lower down so my opening the door wouldn't break it, which I did anyway, to discourage it. Yet the spider persisted, impervious to car washes even. What, was it hoping it would catch me? ("If we pull this off, we'll eat like kings!")

There was usually no sign of the spider itself as I approached the car but one morning I noticed it hanging from the side view mirror after I was already in traffic. It was biggish, enough so that I could tell it had two-toned stripey legs. As the car clipped along at 35mph the spider was swinging around on its thread like Eddie Murphy on the back of that truck in the beginning of Beverly Hills Cop. Luckily I had the window closed otherwise I would have been terrified that it would swing in, land on my face, suck the eyeballs right out of my head and lay its eggs in my brain while irate drivers honked their horns behind me. When I stopped for a light the spider scrambled up into the outside mirror holder thingy, which I guess is where it had been living. I didn't like the idea of its being so near to me as I drove, but I try to avoid killing bugs outside if I can help it and had no way to get at this one just then anyway so I left it alone.

Only problem was that now that I knew this creature was lurking there (and it was open-window weather by then) I was so distracted, spending more time checking the side-view mirror for spiders than for traffic, that I was in constant danger of causing an accident. I repeatedly told the spider that it was in its best interest to vacate the premises, that I would be forced to take drastic measures if it did not, but to no avail. In the end I reluctantly sprayed Raid into the mirror holder one day and saw neither the spider nor its daily webs ever again.

My colleague's sick daughter didn't have mono after all, which threw everyone into a panic as the alternative diagnosis (leukemia) was much more drastic. Happy ending, depending on your point of view: it was a bacterial infection that is responding nicely to heavy-duty antibiotics. Happier ending: the doctor apologized for mentioning leukemia in the first place, after having been taken to task for it by his nurse.

My White Gloves and Party Manners classes might have taken place at Rhodes' department store instead of Bon Marché. Apropos of nothing, our phone number at the time was JU8-9065. Yes, young pups, those first two characters are letters. They stood for "Juniper". Please don't call that number now; I'm not available to come to the phone, having moved away some 34 years ago.