Black widows

   Any of my friends can tell you I am a story teller , what they will also tell you is strange things happen to me , the following are all true stories, my encounters with the dreaded Black Widow Spider .

    California is thick with them. literally, they can be found  anywhere,  especially in the orchards and vineyards where i grew up.  My oldest memory of them was in my Grandmothers garage , a dusty old clap board of a shed building that let in more light through its roof than the windows .  She kept her garden tools out there and canning supplies - boxes and boxes of mason jars .

our own garage was haven to them too settling into dark corners and the aluminum gagrage door where they had the fun of rappeling down on you as it swung upward . they seemed to love my big roll away toolbox and had the spidey sense to know what tool or part I needed . During the night they took delight in hanging suspended across doorways . their web making ability is unbelievable in speed and in strength .  i remember once seeing a rake fall over caught in the web floating in the air at some weird angle like gravity was twisted there.

I invented many ways of dealing with these heart beat changers . spray paint , bb guns , carb cleaner   you name i probably did it  .  of course Karma has it say and they seemed to always get there revenge .   I lost track of how many things I picked up only to feel that egg shell like crush under my fingers . or all the times where i felt an itch ignoring it so i could finish the task at hand only to find a those long prickly legs climbing up my arm or leg . I remember renting a house that had a dry overgrown back lawn , I pulled out the mower and proceed to make it look presentable once again . job done , I sat down on the porch and  relaxed .  My girlfriend brought me some ice tea as i gazed across my handiwork . she then said whats all over your pants ? I said grass  she said no it's moving  I looked down and there had to be 10 to 20 widows all over me ! (I did not have time to get an accurate count ) I jumped up and  must have looked like i was on fire because i started swatting at them like I was! ,  they were in my shoe laces inside my pants  it took me a long time to settle down after that ...

     one of the many occupations I have had was being a car mechanic, used car mechanic, and the widows took our battle up a notch
  Thursday was auction day which meant I was to drive one the cars they bought and bring it back to the lot.  Since I was the mechanic i was assigned the 'voted least likely to make it back' moblie to drive.  These runts of the auction usually barely ran and I was lucky to make it back without a tow . I lost track how many times one of my little or not so little friends would come out while i am chugging down the highway and interupt my attention to the traffic .

    Once back at the lot we stored them out back , what I called the Black Widow farm . and one by one i would bring these cars back to life . the ones that needed the most work sat the longest usually required the most work and thus grew the biggest black widows. 

    One of the most memorable was a Trans Am that had a burned out transmission . My boss finally found a cheap one to replace it with , so it was out to the farm  . I would steam clean the car down which usually sent them running leaving only the most reclusive of them.  I crawled under car  and pulled out the old one and - no Widows . Ok,  cool , I then dragged the newer one into place and began to install it , I am on my back on a creeper balancing a tranny on a floor jack when out of the corner of my eye i saw something drop - quick glance and i dont see anything .  I go back to my wrestling match when I feel that all too familiar itch on my chest.  I lower my chin to my chest and see two huge legs swinging in front of my face. I instinctively swat at it and rocket out from under the car. I am swinging around like a dog chasing its tail , trying to find out where the darn thing went. I stop twirling and the swinging spider catches back up to me . and its huge - golf ball size.  A big one on the ground is a sitting duck , but  give these spiders a web and they move - FAST . it was back to my hand as fast as I swatted at it  and I  played Yo-Yo with it  , I would shake my wrist it would fly out then climb back just as quickly i swatted with my other hand it swapped webs .  I gave a really ,really good  flick and it somehow it gets back on my overalls and .... I lose it - again - I know its on me ,  I just dont know where , so there I am twisting and patting and the owner and salesman are staring through the window wondering , you know, just wondering.  I then decide its time to remove the coveralls which then motivates one of them to poke their head out of the window  - Hey Supe ( short for superman , another story )  whatcha doing ? 

  

to be continued ...

 

 

 

         

Reviews

[Ed Hart]

as a california boy growing up in war time los angeles, i know about black widows...i don't know how we never got the bite...my best black widow story is when i was fifteen years old...the black widow saved my life (it was always something)...i was underneath my jacked up 41 ford sedan (the old 360, don't you know) when i looked away from what i was doing (i don't remember what) a saw this widow on the underframe and i was wondering how it was moving with moving its legs, when it suddenly dawned on me that if the spider was moving, the car must be moving, and if the car had no wheels on and was jacked up and was moving...half a second later i was out from underneath the car, and a half a second after that the car crashed into the cement of the garage floor, and the memory of that event still shakes me...i never got to thank the spider...and that's the truth...

[Alicante lullaby]

spiders and snakes love Sindh perhaps way more than me...i have seen so many of them that it has never occured to me to know them by names..they are just pretty convenient companions,i agree with you upon their falling from no where..its ironic though how i have never seen any bite casuality here where being a snake charmer is almost a profession...

[Samuel Dickens]

Yep, I remember those creepy things from my years in the central valley. They're thick in south Texas, too, along with the brown recluse. My late brother was an upholsterer, and he told of many encounters.

[Robin]

I'm posting a story of how a ghost tried to save mine .

I have been bitten three times, the last one at Laguna Seca , my girlfriend at the time took me to the mission in carmel and washed it in holy water - ironically that bite scarred my leg .