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Barbara Lee's avatar

It might interest you to know that as a special education teacher, I kept as a pet a black widow on my desk for years. We fed it flies and crickets. It’s important to know what is and what isn’t a real threat. Black widow bites ARE serious but they seldom bite unless threatened by being touched and they often bite “blanks”. No venom, like a warning shot. They don’t live in my house but I’m not inclined to kill them if I happen to see them outside. I’m a lot less forgiving of brown recluse who happily burrow into my bed and bite because as far as they are concerned, it’s their bed now and I can just jolly well move over.

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53rd Chapter's avatar

Thank you for that insight! Did the same spider live all that time? Figured their life span was much shorter.

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Barbara Lee's avatar

No but each one lives about 3 years with good care. Since they are literally everywhere except the north and south poles, they were easy to find around the school building. A kindergarten teacher had me paged one day when she recognized one crawling across the floor!! Interestingly, no one in all those years was ever bitten. That’s the potential vs actual threat demonstration.

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53rd Chapter's avatar

Wow, that's way longer than my bathroom buddies last. Think the cats might have something to do with it. My wife understands and is okay with it - she's put up with me for 50 years...

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