There is one inhabitant of our new hometown of which I am NOT a fan: Mr. Spider. Spiders are in such overabundance in this region that on C’s second day here, they were the subject of an entire briefing (and yes, the requisite PowerPoint). There are a variety of 8-legged little terrors around here, ranging from the finger-tip sized guy who greets me in my bathroom, to the nickel-sized monster who was hanging outside my kitchen window this morning.
 |
| I think I've identified this one as a wolf spider |
But none is more sheet-shaking, clothes-checking, terror-inducing than the brown recluse.
Apparently this little sucker’s venom eats away at your skin and can cause lesions and flu-like symptoms. What fun!
The day after C’s heart-warming briefing, I got a bug bite above my heel. Unlike my normal reaction (unbearable itching, like most people), this bite swelled from tiny to monstrous in about a minute and began turning bright red, and then my muscle starting tensing up and my foot went numb. Of course, an overly-informed C was convinced that I had already been the recipient of our local enemy’s charm and “encouraged” me to go to the clinic. The nurse on duty assured me that it was not a brown recluse bite, but I was probably having an allergic reaction to some other insect or spider bite and I should try some Benadryl.
I have never been a fan of spiders (when I was younger, I would make my brother, 10 years my junior, kill any spider within a 10 foot radius of me), so all of this talk of arachnids haunting my personal space has me a wee bit paranoid. I compulsively check my sheets and hanging clothes before I crawl between them and have even taken to shaking out my towel both before and after I shower. I am looking forward to the day when we can coexist in harmony. Either that, or I’ll continue to count the days until the next visit from the exterminator and kiss my little foes good-bye.
