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I am terrified of spiders. I don't even like talking about them, but I thought that what I just found out about Black Widows, or one in particular,is a handy piece of information to have...
Almost one month ago, my 16 year old daughter found a Black Widow building a web in an attic window. Really not knowing much about them and also not even being sure that it was truly a Black Widow, she managed to wrangle it into a Mason jar, put a lid on it, and bring it to Hubs for identification. He verified that it was indeed one of those awful creatures. I guess we both just assumed that Cina understood how harmful a bite from one of these can be. Well, she didn't. I realized this when I discovered that, instead of crushing, flushing, spraying, or any form of killing the spider, she was actually thinking she could take it to school to show her Science teacher. I put the brakes on that immediately. Imagine if the jar had broken and maybe she or some other person were bitten. I then made sure that she understood that she had a poison spider. Somehow, she had managed to make it 16 whole years and never knew that.
So there we were. A poisonous spider in a jar. I definitely had no plans of letting it go. I was afraid to open the jar in order to kill it. Then Cina told me that she had hidden the jar. I went spastic at first, thinking that she was trying to protect the spider, as she is the sort of gal that likes to carry bees and such outside and release them. Directly opposite of my "SQUISH IT! STOMP IT! REPEAT!" method of disposing of any bug other than ladybugs,crickets, and Daddy Long Legs, and a few others probably. Turns out, since she learned what the spider could do, she was just as scared as me and was hiding it to be sure that no one else found the jar and unknowingly opened it, until we could figure out what to do with it.
My dilemma was solved by the next day, when she told me that she had checked on the spider and it was now dead. WHEW! Well, several days passed and the spider was all but forgotten. Until Cina heard me telling the story to my oldest daughter and mentioned that she had still not disposed of the body. I told her it was silly to keep and dead spider in a jar and to flush it ASAP. I assumed she did just that. But teens will be teens and she didn't. I wasn't aware of this...
Well, last night, she returned from a two week and two days visit with her dad. She went up to finally take the spider and get rid of it. Guess what... After one month in a jar, with no food, no water, and even a missing leg, that little sucker is still ALIVE! I guess it was just playing possum the day she had announced it's demise. So... I am back to the dilemma of what the heck to do with that awful thing. I'm contemplating going off in the woods and burying it, jar and all. Maybe when archaeologists dig it up a thousand years from now, they can decide the best way to kill it...
Almost one month ago, my 16 year old daughter found a Black Widow building a web in an attic window. Really not knowing much about them and also not even being sure that it was truly a Black Widow, she managed to wrangle it into a Mason jar, put a lid on it, and bring it to Hubs for identification. He verified that it was indeed one of those awful creatures. I guess we both just assumed that Cina understood how harmful a bite from one of these can be. Well, she didn't. I realized this when I discovered that, instead of crushing, flushing, spraying, or any form of killing the spider, she was actually thinking she could take it to school to show her Science teacher. I put the brakes on that immediately. Imagine if the jar had broken and maybe she or some other person were bitten. I then made sure that she understood that she had a poison spider. Somehow, she had managed to make it 16 whole years and never knew that.
So there we were. A poisonous spider in a jar. I definitely had no plans of letting it go. I was afraid to open the jar in order to kill it. Then Cina told me that she had hidden the jar. I went spastic at first, thinking that she was trying to protect the spider, as she is the sort of gal that likes to carry bees and such outside and release them. Directly opposite of my "SQUISH IT! STOMP IT! REPEAT!" method of disposing of any bug other than ladybugs,crickets, and Daddy Long Legs, and a few others probably. Turns out, since she learned what the spider could do, she was just as scared as me and was hiding it to be sure that no one else found the jar and unknowingly opened it, until we could figure out what to do with it.
My dilemma was solved by the next day, when she told me that she had checked on the spider and it was now dead. WHEW! Well, several days passed and the spider was all but forgotten. Until Cina heard me telling the story to my oldest daughter and mentioned that she had still not disposed of the body. I told her it was silly to keep and dead spider in a jar and to flush it ASAP. I assumed she did just that. But teens will be teens and she didn't. I wasn't aware of this...
Well, last night, she returned from a two week and two days visit with her dad. She went up to finally take the spider and get rid of it. Guess what... After one month in a jar, with no food, no water, and even a missing leg, that little sucker is still ALIVE! I guess it was just playing possum the day she had announced it's demise. So... I am back to the dilemma of what the heck to do with that awful thing. I'm contemplating going off in the woods and burying it, jar and all. Maybe when archaeologists dig it up a thousand years from now, they can decide the best way to kill it...
HUGS
Dawna
Haha! I wouldn't even be able to TOUCH the jar to bury it!
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