Evading The Spider

For months now, whenever I placed my hand into my plastic recycling barrel's molded handle (about once a week), I could feel spider webs. Someone had a nice, dry home deep under that handle! At some primitive level, I also understood that this was a black widow's web, because of the web's chaotic denseness.

So today, when I moved the barrel, I first used a tissue to clean out the web, and then tossed the webby tissue into the trash. Looking into the trash barrel, I could see a disoriented black widow spider walking around. Whew! Glad that's gone!

Interestingly, on my thumb, I now feel a phantom pinprick. I don't think I was bitten, since there is no discoloration or other evident problem, but instead I think that my anxious imagination is making up a psychosomatic wound for my own entertainment.