Potter: Surviving Black widow terror at my door

There was a black widow spider on my porch the other evening.

And then there were 2, 3, and 4. And as my wife researched what exactly a black widow spider bite does (rigid, painful muscles, abdominal pain and cramping, nausea and vomiting, breathing trouble, sometimes death), I tried to remember the last time my kids played on the front porch with shoes on.

I became concerned (terrified and sweating as phantom spiders crawled over and bit my whole body).

I’ve never really liked spiders, and big hairy-looking ones like hobos and wolf spiders freak me right the heck out. But I’ve never been scared for my life from a spider. I always knew that in scary parts of the world there are crazy deadly everything, including spiders. But those are things I read about in books or watched on those ‘world’s deadliest stuff’ shows.

But this was my front porch!!!

So I went to confirm my fears and figure out how to survive in a world where death is just a scurry away. I didn’t get off to a great start.

The first source I found said “Most spiders are harmless; the two exceptions in the U.S. are the black widow and brown recluse spiders.” Every other source said some variation of the same thing. So that sucks.

Also, most spiders can’t bite through human skin. But a black widow has some chompers on her, which is part of what makes her so dangerous.

And then, according to several sources (all of them), black widow spiders are considered the most venomous spider in North America (and they made all the top 10 lists I found for world’s most dangerous). Their venom is apparently like 10 times more powerful than a rattlesnake.

And then something unexpected happened. Every source had a list of black widow symptoms and treatments and every list lacked the one thing I thought would be most prominent: death. A couple sources mentioned that death was a remote possibility in the very young and old, but that was more of an afterthought, anyway.

But I would not so easily be swayed from my sure knowledge that spiders kill (I did see “Arachnophobia,” after all). So I expanded my search to deadliest spiders worldwide, thinking the worldwide spider community knew more than the obviously uninformed North American one. And while I found black widows high on those lists, as well, here’s the kicker:

There is no “deadly” when it comes to spiders. The correct words are “dangerous” or “really painful causing lots of swearing.” From what I can tell, spiders are not a source of fatality in all but a microscopic few instances.

What I’ve learned:

It turns out that both statistically and factually, there’s practically nothing to fear from spiders, and first-aid for spider bites is for comfort, not to stave off anything dangerous. Of course, the first-aid is really good to know, and something I haven’t been doing with my own kids.

You see, as a parent of 5, I’ve seen a lot of kids with swollen bites on various parts of their body, and I always either say, “That sucks. Sorry,” if it’s small, or “Go see mom right now” if it’s big. But it turns out I could have been helping them a lot more (sorry, kids) because the treatment is the same for all spider bites and super simple: wash it, put cold on it, and take some pain meds.

Done. I’m prepared for spiders.

I guess, like with the dog food and cacti, the next step is to experience things for myself and let a black widow bite me. Hopefully I’m still around for my next column.