Out of the inferno of World War III came this simple truth:  spiders are a man's best friend! 

LOVE AMONG THE RUINS 

There was a global thermonuclear war with all the attendant mess that implies.  A few weeks later, when the radiation died down, a man and woman were crawling over the rubble of what had been Manhatten.   

"My name's Adam," he said. 

"My name's Eve," she replied. 

"Funny thing," he said, "but I once wrote a science fiction story along these lines." 

"Really!" she gasped.  "So did I!" 

Later, when they discovered other survivors, they learned that every third person in the United States had written such a story.  Yet while most of the writers were let off the hook by the simple expedient of having perished during the radioactive firestorms, Adam and Eve found themselves the butt of endless jokes at the cocktail parties on the ruins of what was still regarded as the fashionable East Side. 

"Adam and Eve," the trendy people said.  "Awwwwww, soooooo cuuuuute!" 

Finally, Eve felt that enough was enough.  "You'll have to change your name," she told Adam. 

"What?" he demanded.  "Why do I have to change my name?  Why don't you change your name?" 

That kind of logic was faltering even before the nuclear holocaust, and so Adam changed his name . . . to Steve. 

"Steve and Eve," the cocktail party people said.  "Ha ha ha!" 

"I told you!" Eve said between clenched teeth. 

"Well, it's my middle name," Steve replied.  "I thought it was worth a try." 

"I think you should try, uh . . . 'Dave,'" she suggested. 

"Dave!?" he exclaimed.  "Why 'Dave?'" 

"I don't know, it sounds nice." 

"Well, why don't you be, uh . . . 'Dolores!'  That sounds nice too!" 

She folded her arms.   

And so life in Post-Apocalyptic America went on . . . under the name of 'Dave.'  

But then one day Dave and his friend Bruce were spearfishing in the East River, and a shadow loomed behind them.  They turned -- and it was a thirty-foot tall spider! 

"A radioactive mutant!" Dave exclaimed. 

"Ya think?" Bruce said.   

Dave nearly had a heart attack, but Bruce nonchalantly threw his spear.  The spider instantly popped like a balloon. 

"You knew that would happen!" Dave said. 

"Cube-square law," said Bruce, who was an engineer.  "Anything that big on such spindly legs can't possibly weigh very much." 

"Wow," said Dave, who was a publicist. 

There must have been a herd of the critters in the area, because that very night, as Eve and Dave were walking back across the semi-radioactive wastelands after visiting her semi-mutated friends, a giant spider crawled into the intersection in front of them. 

"EEEEK!" Eve shrieked, burying her face in his chest.  "Save me, Dave!" 

"Dave?" he said.  "Who's Dave?" 

"I mean, I mean -- Steve!" 

"Don't know no Steve, either." 

"But you can't be Adam again!" 

"You know what spiders do with their prey?  They wrap them in webbing and slooooowly suck away their -- " 

"All right!  All right!  You're Adam!  Now do something!  Please!" 

He hefted his spear and straightened his back. 

"Sure," Adam replied.  "Whatever you say . . . Dolores."