ZekeR

The last couple This American Life podcast episodes have helped calm me down (maybe rationalize) the most recent round of USA national elections, which didn't really go the way I wanted. But the most current episode (The Official Unofficial Record) also had a light-hearted fun segment about the long-standing negative connotations of the infamous Black Widow spider.

The Black Widow took up a chunk of my childhood headspace, along with quicksand and stranger danger, as one of many dangerous hazards I needed to be alert for in the wider world.

What is true: The Black Widow does possess a neurotoxin in its venom.

What is maybe not true: The Black Widow is an exceptionally, perhaps uniquely, lethal spider that kills scores of unaware humans every year.

What you need to know, and what I didn't know, is that the lethality of the Black Widow spider to human populations (in America) directly correlates to the span of time between when most people started building outhouses, and the time indoor plumbing became widely available.

Black Widow spiders love outhouses. Outhouses are full of delicious flies. What they don't love is people coming in and using those outhouses when they aren't expecting them.

Black Widow spider venom isn't particularly dangerous. Their little injector teeth are quite small, and they don't bite very hard. Most people don't have anything to worry about from Black Widow spiders, unless they are bitten in a particularly sensitive area, like the genitals.

Nope. Nope. Nope.

I am now firmly in the indoor plumbing camp. I was on the fence, but now I'm a toilet man, through and through. If I ever need to "go" outside, ever again, I will bring a shovel. I have that technology.

I also understand Black Widows don't really live in Minnesota.

That helps a little.