I’ve never been afraid of spiders, with one pretty reasonable exception: black widows. As a kid, I put my hand in a black widow web that was nested inside of an outdoor toy, and I remember feeling like my field of vision just zoomed in on that red mark on her belly and it was the only thing I could see as I ran away screaming. She didn’t bite me, but I will never forget what those webs feel like. So when I accidentally stuck my hand in a web on my front porch a few weeks ago and immediately knew what kind of spider lived there, naturally I decided to ignore the problem because surely it would go away on its own. A few days later, one of my cats was chasing something on the floor, and I thought “oh, its probably just a harmless house spider” until I saw the distinct sharp black legs and slightly shimmery body, and I screeched and hissed at my poor cat to run away while I dealt with the intruder. I caught her in a jar and I’ve been keeping her locked in there; I found out that black widows can live for like 3+ months without eating, so she will have a long time to think about what she’s done in solitary confinement before she finally dies of starvation.
After all that, I got anti-bug spray and blasted every inch of my front porch with it. I found 4 more black widows out there, and managed to spray 1 with it, so I had the satisfaction of watching her shrivel up and die thanks to my new bottle of “I hate spiders now” acid. I looked up advice on reddit for what else I could do to ensure this never happens again, and came across several absolutely deranged posts on r/spiders. These people think that you should just let a black widow that is nesting inside of your house LIVE!!!! LIVE IN YOUR HOUSE!!!! WHERE YOU SLEEP!!!!! WHERE YOU EAT!!!!!!!!!! WHERE MY CATS COULD GET BITTEN AND DIE!!!!!!! That will not be happening in my house.
Happy Halloween, and death to all black widows!!!
Alex Powelson 