The spider had landed squarely (or rather, cubically) on his feet. He steeled himself, glanced around, and stood with all eight feet ready to kick, like Jackie Chan3.

But who was the perceived menace? Me! I had picked him up and galumphed halfway across his known world. I must have seemed like Godzilla to that spider. If we were a movie, we'd be Godzilla vs. Jackie Chan3; our running time, 0:00:06 minutes. That would be a very short movie. But still long enough for the audience to realize its sympathy was entirely with the spider.

Now the spider was tidying his front legs with a practiced casualness, almost like the Fonz checking his hair. He seemed to be saying, "Heeey. You roughed me up, but I'm still cooool." Anyone could see the little guy was tough. He appeared to have all eyes focused on what he was doing, which was preening himself. But just as nothing ever got by the Fonz, I'm sure the spider really had most of his eight eyes on me. A little Fonz3 was he.

I backed off, to give him the satisfaction of having scared away Godzilla. He looked cautiously optimistic, but perhaps worried about the likelihood of a sequel. Godzilla vs. the Fonz3 would've been a short movie, too.

The spider surely had no idea that Godzilla's motives were honorable. He must have felt stranded in the middle of nowhere. I knew otherwise; I knew if I could just coax him a few more steps he'd be outside. Unfortunately, he would no longer let me near him.

You see, his eight feet had landed just four feet from my living room, and just twelve feet from ersatz California. But like so many would-be gold rush adventurers, he'd already seen too much adversity on the way. California was starting to sound like a bad idea altogether.

Maybe that's where places like "Dodge City, Kansas" and "Las Vegas, Nevada" and "Las Cruces, New Mexico" came from—from California starting to sound like a bad idea.

So, the spider made no move toward the great outdoors. Dazed and lost, and probably a bit weak from hunger, he scuttled into the corner and hid among the dust bunny tumbleweeds, in the New Mexico of my hallway.