11/8/2007 Creepy Madness

After giving it a week to set in I think I can finally describe what I cave come to think of as a major turning point in my life. Last Saturday night around 10:40pm as I was getting ready for bed I discovered a Black Widow spider lurking around on my INTERIOR LIVING ROOM WALL. I had just washed my face, removed my contact lenses and brushed my teeth and as I turned the light off in the bathroom I glanced at a black spot in my peripheral view and thought "that looks creepy". Since I had just turned off the light and removed my contacts I wasn't able to distinguish it from any other run-of-the-mill, household spider SO I got a jar and trapped it. And put a lid on it. (mama didn't raise no fool)

My house is really dark. And really under construction. There are holes and insulation and nails everywhere. Only recently did my claw foot bath tub find it's way from the dining room back to it's original position. There is a hole in my closet you could throw a cat through. The entire Island Home/Southhaven squirrel population lives in my attic, and skunks use my basement as a nightmare birthing clinic. More skunks have been spotted less than two feet from my house than in the whole of the rest of the natural world. Though the realtor, Patrick assured me the house wasn't haunted, I wasn't 100% sure till a black starling flew into my head when I was sleeping. Everything about my house is cavernous and it makes perfect sense that any host of critters might den up here.

After investigating the captured spider and referring to a little thing I call Google it was confirmed; I had a Black Widow in a mason jar, in my hand. If any creature has a bad rep it is the Black Widow. I assumed the worst about them basing my knowledge on Spiderman, The Sweet Hereafter, and other fiction/urban legends like;

"...After about a week, she noticed what she thought was a pimple growing and growing. The skin was inflamed and it looked like a blister. Then, one day, she was blow-drying her hair and hit the inflamed spot with her hair dryer. The blistered skin broke open and hundreds of tiny white baby spiders and pus came pouring out of the wound!"

Truth is a Black Widow spider wont kill an adult. The symptoms sound a lot like taking LSD with more neuro-muscular discombobulation; bad, but not THAT bad. After learning this I relaxed a little. Then I read that in each egg sack there were 300-900 baby spiders inside and I became more tense. Then I thought about little Foxy crawling on the floor behind the toilet, all damp and dark and I got even more freaked out. But then I thought "Surely this spider would rather live outside in a tree stump or something... it's only in my house because it is getting colder". This idea was the one that would allow me to sleep peacefully but then I remembered reading a story about a man who got bit a million times because a spider had laid her egg in his bed and there were tiny, biting baby widows all over his legs like pepper! I changed the sheets and made the bed all nice and smooth and cool, then searched my body for bites as I was beginning to feel and/or experience

-cramping pain and muscle rigidity in the stomach, chest, shoulders, and back

-headache

-dizziness

-rash and itching

-restlessnes and anxiety

-sweating

-nausea

-salivation, tearing of the eyes

-weakness, tremors, or paralysis, especially in the legs

Finally I got comfortable enough with the idea that I HAD NOT gotten bitten and was able to fall asleep.

The next morning I awoke and checked the spider out just to be sure it wasn't a horrible nightmare. She was minding her own business and making the most of her new place. I spent as much time as I could that day insulating the vacuous back room and closing up holes in the bathroom. Surprisingly enough I'm not thinking about spiders every second of my life.