I'll take my itchy tummy any day

My friend Andrea got bit by a brown recluse spider on Saturday.

That's right. A brown recluse SPIDER. Bit her. On the FOREHEAD.

I didn't know we had these suckers, but according to the emergency room doctors--that's right she had to go to the EMERGENCY ROOM -- and a state entomologist, we do. (Well the entomologist said it was a brown violin spider, which is pretty much the same thing).

Andrea said the emergency rooms doctors drained six ounces--SIX OUNCES--of fluid from her forehead.

This all sounded so ghastly to me, I felt compelled to do some research.

So I called a trusted source at the state Department of Agriculture who gave me the number to a state entomologist. That guy--the entomologist--used the word "flesh rotting" a lot because the brown recluse injects its victims with a poisionous venom that causes its flesh to rot. The spider then sucks it dry.

The entomologist said he only gets one or two reports a year of brown recluse spider bites. That's right. ONLY one or two a year. The poisonous spider spit is rarely fatal, but if not treated immediately it can lead to bacterial infection like gangrene, and that'll definitely kill you if you don't get it treated.

I expressed shock. I grew up here, after all, in blissful ignorance that brown recluse spiders had likely been lurking in closets and garages since the 1970s.

Not nearly as long as the black widow spiders, also poisonous, who have also lived here since the 1800s, the entomologist was quick to point out.

He said these spiders usually favor cold, dry, climates like Mauna Kea.

"What about Ocean View?"

"Oh, yeah."

I remembered how just two days ago--Saturday, the day the spider bit Andrea--I had been with Chris in Ocean View skipping around his parents' property.

I feel especially bad for Andrea because she lives in a rustic hippie hut surrounded by lush nature in all its creepy, crawly glory. She had just gotten used to the cane spiders--one named Steve who hung out behind her curtain (out of sight, out of mind) and Maria who's currently skittering around with an egg sac the size of a Hershey's kiss stuck between her front legs. And she was downright friendly with Gordito, the fat Madagascar day gecko who she caught licking the frosting off her cupcakes.

But Madagascar day geckos are pretty. And cane spiders, although hideous, are harmless.

I don't know how I'm going to sleep at night knowing there are brown recluse spiders who like to lurk in "undisturbed in cool, dark places like under shelves and in closets during the day and go hunting during the night," according to articles I googled under "brown recluse spider."

Andrea was sleeping when the spider bit her. It was probably hunting.

But I have to give Andrea credit. She has kept her sense of humor throughout this ordeal. She allowed our boss to inspect her hands and say, "Hey at least you don't have sticky strands shooting out of your wrist like Spiderman."

"Yeah I know," Andrea replied. "I didn't even get bit by a cool spider."

I can't believe she came to work.