I was briefly in Chicago last week and I had time on the way to the airport to have a ($8!) beer at a bar at the top of the Hancock building. It's really high up. According to the waitress, 1100 feet.

Which made it all the more strange that it's absolutely crawling with spiders. (On the outside of the building.) And I mean big spiders--bodies the size of a dime. In their webs. This brought up several questions in my mind:

(a) How do they get up there? Wind? Carried up by equipment?
(b) Does it ever get so windy that they blow off?
(c) In the winter, where do they go? (Do spiders hibernate?)
(d) Are there that many bugs flying around at 1100 feet that they can eat?

The waitress was very nice, but she was absolutely no help. Were I running the bar, I'd have at least one arachnologist on staff to answer burning questions like these.


As a sidenote, it's odd that when I wake up tomorrow, there's a small but nonzero chance that New Orleans will no longer exist. That's just strange.