Arachnophobia

[steuard]

I don't think I'm excessively nervous around spiders. Sure, I tend to react poorly if they're actually on my body, and I'm not eager to share my living space with big ones. But in general I think spiders and their webs are pretty cool. Relatively few are dangerous, so there's no reason to be paranoid about them. In fact, I've never been near a dangerous spider that wasn't in a cage.

Or so I'd assumed. A student mentioned last week that some Scripps dorms have black widow spiders in their basements. Still, I've never spent much time in the Scripps dorms: no worries. But then another student commented that you could sometimes see them around the steps of our science building. So, ok, they're around, but it's not as if they're a visible presence.

But no. Coming back from lunch today, another faculty member pointed out a big web made by a black widow. Three feet from where I park my bike. This suddenly casts the small webs I've found on my bike itself from time to time in a whole new light.

Comments

[jminnis.livejournal.com]

Black Widows aren't that bad because they're big and easy to spot. The Brown Recluse (not native to California) is the scary one in the US.