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Why couldn't it be 'follow the butterflies'?

Last night as I returned home from the annual Latin American & Caribbean festival, I noticed that there was a huge black spider building a web across the window in the corner of my apartment building's entryway. I didn't think a whole lot of it, but then I woke up at 3:30am realizing that it might be a black widow.

I spent about an hour looking at pictures of black widows on the Internet (which look suspiciously like this spider by my doorway) and reading about all of the damage their poison can do. Then I probably spent another hour trying to fall back asleep and trying to convince myself that since there were two doors between us and it had probably been there quite a while before I noticed it, the black widow probably wasn't going to come and bite me in the night. Then after I finally woke up again I didn't leave the house until 2pm. I could have left a lot earlier, but it took me a while to work up the nerve to walk past the web again (even though black widows are nocturnal and it is sleeping in its little den right now).

We don't have poisonous spiders in Michigan! I am pretty sure there is a sign at the border, written in Spiderese, that says "Poisonous Spiders Not Welcome Here." I do not know what to do about poisonous spiders! What is wrong with this godforsaken spider-ridden state? Make them go away! Where is Ron Weasley to rescue me????

srah - Saturday, 8 September 2007 - 3:13 PM
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Comments (7)

gravatar Aunt Pam - September 8, 2007 - 9:51 PM - ℓ

From da interweb:

How dangerous are black widow spider bites?
If a black widow spider bites a person, do not panic! No one in the United States has died from a black widow spider bite in over 10 years. Very often the black widow will not inject any venom into the bite and no serious symptoms develop. Wash the wound well with soap and water to help prevent infection.

gravatar srah - September 8, 2007 - 9:57 PM - ℓ

That's a relief! Everything I found seemed to be "You probably won't die, but you'll sweat and drool and throw up and your heart will race and all your muscles will cry out in anguish."

gravatar krista. - September 9, 2007 - 2:50 AM - ℓ

Hate to break it to you, but there are black widows in Michigan. My friends' parents regularly found them in their woodpiles, and one of my friend's little sister liked to catch them in jars and freak her out. Ick.

gravatar srah - September 9, 2007 - 9:00 AM - ℓ

I figured there probably were. The websites kept listing states that BWs could be found in and it struck me as funny when they didn't say Michigan, as though we had an enchanted border line or something.

gravatar Laarni - September 10, 2007 - 3:13 AM - ℓ

Black widow spiders? scary.

gravatar Cheryl - September 10, 2007 - 8:19 AM - ℓ

There was also that black widow in Michigan that turned up in some Grapes at Kroger.

gravatar Cheryl - September 10, 2007 - 8:19 AM - ℓ

P.S. I don't know why I capitalized the word "grapes".

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