Our car, the 2002 VW Jetta Wagon, whom Dawn calls Mary, is getting close to 50,000 miles. We’re going to the beach at the end of the month, so we figure we’d better get the 50K service. So instead of our usual morning walk, we head off in the car like suburbanites, to Wes Greenway’s Alexandria Volkswagen.

A shuttle takes us from the dealer to Pentagon City Metro. Oddly enough the shuttle is some sort of Chrysler minivan, not a VW at all. Although I guess VW makes the Toureg SUV, but not a minivan, so what else would they use? The back only holds four people, and some guy is already inside when we climb aboad, so Dawn and I don’t sit together. She reads her book on the way, which I can’t do in a car. Or minivan.

I go after work to pick it up, but the train and then the wait for the shuttle take me way past making it to ballet class. But the new wiper blades sure are spiffy.

There’s a spider making a web between the outside driver’s side mirror and the door body proper. I notice this as I’m speeding along, the spider hunkered down against the wind, what must be an enormous wind to such a tiny little guy. I feel bad for him, so I pull over and scoop him up with the receipt from the dealer. Then I deposit him into a bush.

Hope he’s happy there.