Monday, February 8, 2010

i am the fly

so i got bitten by a spider week before last whilst playing in my garden off the grid... it may have been a funnel web. possibly a fiddleback. we don't really know. whatever it was, it hurt. initially.

whilst trying to positively ID the spider after an instantaneous short scream of "motherfucker" complete with dance & a nano visual flash of multiple legs & eyes wedged between my finger and the brick i'd moved [just after removing my garden gloves. doh!] in the waning light my arm started to go numb so after applying a pressure bandage, it was decided to face the hour or so drive to the nearest rural hospital. goulburn is lovely at this time of year.

a funnel web spider bite can kill a child in only a few minutes. adult response is a lot more variable & it can take hours if it happens at all. whilst experiencing the hypnotic pleasantness of the half loss of the use of my arms & a soft humming pins & needle sensation through my legs, i have to report after the initial wave of nausea as my body did battle with the toxin it was very very relaxing.

it really seems now that the whole dangerous spider thing is a bit of a misnomer. spiders are being terribly maligned in this country. three days later when i got bitten by another spider, i barely budged & continued to throw rocks into my shiny red wheelbarrow unphased whilst enjoying the slow tingling sensation. my feral bush woman initiation complete.

in fact i'm thinking about patenting spider venom as some new street drug. deliciously creamy. after first bite i was all ready to bequeath with love my juices to the nearest over-sized spider. now i kind of know what it feels like to be a paralysed fly. that movie was all wrong. don't help me, help yourself.

arachnophobes have got it all wrong. love thy spider.

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