Nichols: 10/12 Latrodectus (Black Widow)

I was in the kitchen unpacking groceries when it happened. I just returned from the local Whole Foods, where I normally shop for my fruit and vegetable needs. I laid my car keys and brown grocery bags down on the granite countertop and kicked off my shoes to get comfortable.

I like to unpack my bags immediately, so I went right at it and reached into the first brown grocery bag to grab my favorite snack, grapes. They’re in a large plastic bag with the word ORGANIC strewn across the front, which always seems odd to me because grapes should be by definition organic, but nonetheless I decide to sample a few of the fruits anyways. I reached into the plastic sack and tore three grapes off the vine. As I pulled my hand out of the bag, I noticed a tiny black spider scurrying across the grapes and onto my hand. Nope.

My first reaction, like many others, is to immediately scream and panic. I toss the grapes out of my hand in defense and try to swat off the spider, but it’s already made its way to the back of my hand. At this point I just want it off me, so I decide to give it a quick swat with my left hand. It’s a direct hit, leaving the small arachnoid reeling on the ceramic tile floor. I watch as it scurries across the tile, finding its way to a cracked vent in the floor. As it rounds the corner, I finally notice a little red hourglass across its abdomen, a tell-tale sign of the common North American black widow.

I remember studying these tiny creatures in high school. The species is named after the notorious female black widow, who feasts on the head of her male counterpart after reproduction, leaving her as a widow. They also have a very venomous bite that, in females, releases an extremely potent dose of their signature poison, latrotoxin.

Now I notice I’m starting to feel faint. I look down at my hand and notice a small red bump along the ridges of my index and middle fingers. Oh snap.

I don’t remember much of what happened after that. Fear had completely taken over my body. All I could think to do was go to the hospital, so I grabbed my keys and ran to my car. I don’t even remember driving there. My only thought was “I’m going to die… just one little bite from this little black spider is going to kill me.” 

I could feel myself getting weaker by the second, with the powerful toxin likely pulsing through my veins and into my vital organs. I remember reading somewhere that the adult female’s toxin can kill a full grown man, and immediately the panicking heightens. “I’m going to die… I’m going to die,” I keep repeating to myself. My narcissistic thoughts are hardy helping, but they at least keep me awake long enough to know I am parked outside the ER entrance.

I awake to a nurse changing my sheets, humming the song “Black Widow” by Iggy Azalea.

“I’m alive!” I weakly exclaim, overjoyed that I’d made it through the night.

The nurse looked at me, puzzled.

“Of course you’re alive, sweetheart,” she said. “It was only a spider bite.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latrodectus

https://historylist.wordpress.com/2008/05/29/human-deaths-in-the-us-caused-by-animals/