Time means nothing to spiders.

I recently started watching a spider in my basement window.

I was fascinated. First there's the creature itself. How unlikely! Eight legs! What's that all about? And then there's the web it spins: all that delicate lacework but strong enough to snare wayward insects. Strong but astonishingly pliant, almost invisible -- beautiful with the right light behind it -- so fine that the slightest bug step on it triggers vibrations that bring the spider scurrying out like a kid hearing the pizza driver pull up out front.

Dinner is served!

Only it didn't happen. I watched and I watched, and nothing appeared in the web, and the spider stayed exactly where he/she was, at the mouth of the web. Waiting. Just waiting.

And I watched. Not all the time, but I kept checking back every few hours. Nothing. No movement whatsoever. It's like the spider must have been in some kind of trance. A self-induced coma. It never moved so much as a leg in more than two days.

Then something happened.

One morning a small insect -- a gnat or something gnat-size -- appeared in the web, trapped there, wiggling, writhing, stuck. On and off, I watched it struggle for the better part of a day before it finally seemed to give up and was still, as if ready for what was to come.

And, of course, what came was the spider. Sometime during the night. The next morning there was no insect in the web, and the spider was stationed, as before, in its lair, waiting, just waiting.

What is life to a spider? It lives a real life, full of drama and maybe even a primitive kind of love. After all, from what I remember from biology classes, it's catching prey to feed its young. I seem to recall that it anesthetizes its prey with a bite -- what must that feel like? Ouch! And then its offspring feed on that (still living?) food source. So the spider is looking after its children, right?

And sometime in there, the spider had sex. What is spider sex like? Does the female enjoy it or just endure it? She must want it, welcome it, or she wouldn't present herself as ready. I don't think rape exists in the animal world, but I may be mistaken. My assumption has always been that the males know when the females want it, and it's up the females to decide which males get to do it with them. I welcome any clarification from biologists, especially those specializing in spiders.

But the larger point is this: At what point is a life worth not stomping on?

I respect spiders and let them go about their job of eating insects in my house. My wife is spooked by them, so I try to catch them on a sheet of paper and move them out of the house, apologizing to them for the inconvenience, telling them that it's better than being stomped to death.

Does a spider think? If so, about what? Probably a spider doesn't think. At least not about time.

The spider I'm watching now is in a web in a far corner of the ceiling of my basement office. He or she is sitting in the middle of its web, absolutely still. It's been sitting there for days. The web looks good. Sturdy but elegant. It ought to attract prey.

Shoot, I'd fly into it if I had a mind to. I've had days like that.

How long have I been watching? I've lost track. Need to get back to work.

Time means nothing to spiders.

Maybe they're onto something.