My family has lived for generations in the back corner of the basement, in the cool damp shade of the water heater. We've spun our webs, eaten our prey and laid our eggs, without ever venturing much farther than the far side of the furnace.

I may be tiny, itsy bitsy even, but I'm not like other spiders; I needed to roam, to see the world. Family legends tell of cold crawl spaces filled with giant silverfish, and stone white bathrooms with such slick surfaces you're lucky to find an anchor for your web. I wanted to see them, needed to see them...

So one fateful day, I wrapped a few dead fly parts in a small web, slung it on my back and began my adventure.

I crept up the wall above the water heater, following a water pipe. When I reached the summit of the pipe, I discovered it disappeared into the wall. Slowly I followed it into the darkness, into the very cement itself.

It was dark, and the walls closed in on me. I scraped my legs and scoured my back. It seemed I must have walked a foot or more, and began to wonder if I was ever going to get out of this cave, when I saw a glimmer of light ahead. I clamored to the top of the pipe and ran for the light.

I surveyed my position. I was on top of a spout of some kind. Towering above me was a huge handle; below me, the pipe curved downward and opened up, where glistening drops of water clung to the lip of the pipe. Behind me, the rough surface of the brick offered a myriad of craigs to anchor my new web!

I had found the promised land! I off-loaded my back pack and began to weave my new home. It was long hard work... in this land of plenty I was consructing the most ambitious web of my career. I didn't notice the sky greying over, I didn't see the clouds gathering, didn't hear the thunder, didn't see the lightning.

Intent on my work, I didn't see the rain until it was too late, exposed there on top of the water spout. Down came the rain. I tried to make it to cover, back into the hole I had climbed out of. But in my panic and hurry I became entangled in my own web, and hung there, helplessly as the rain slammed itself against the house.

I don't know how long I hung there, tossed by the wind and rain drops bigger than myself. It seemed like eternity, but couldn't have been much more than a few minutes. Sprong! A strand broke. Sprong! Another. Soon, pop! pop! pop! the whole web had broken loose, and entangled in it, I tumbled to the soft, mushy ground below.

I lay there, face down in the mud, cursing myself a thousand times over for ever beginning this stupid adventure. It took all my legs to shelter my head and back from the onslaught. I think I must have fallen into an exhausted sleep. When I awoke, it was still grey and overcast.

I didn't pay attention to much as I worked, just chewing and spitting the fine silk, leg, by leg, by leg, by leg, by leg, by leg, by leg. Free at long last, I looked around me. The world was golden! The sun had come out and the rain drops clinging to every surface shimmered like a thousand rainbows. Never in the dark gloom of the basement had I ever seen such a symphony of color and light. The beauty overwhelmed me. I dragged myself to a blade of grass and licked up several refreshing drops of water.

Sitting there in the glow of the midday sun, I knew I could never go back to the dank darkness of the basement. Regaining my strength from the water, I began the long, slow climb up the water spout. Up, up to the top, to once again weave a web to be my new home...

And the moral of the story is... if at first you don't succeed, eat a few flies and carry on.