There’s a spider on your leg

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, May 5, 2007

They’re hairy, they bite, and we hate finding them in the shower. And the sink. And our shoes.

Spiders’ ingenuity at turning up where you don’t want them has spawned a number of urban legends, lovingly cataloged at snopes.com (http://www.snopes.com). But they recently turned up somewhere no one would think to look for them. See if you can guess which of the following stories is true:

A) A woman on the East Coast with rather large hair nearly died when she was bitten by spiders residing in her up-do.

B) A doctor extracted two spiders from the ear of a boy in Oregon after the boy reported hearing sounds that sounded like the snap-crackle-pop of Rice Krispies.

C) Several people in Chicago were sickened after being bitten on their posteriors by spiders lurking under the seat of a toilet on a flight from South America.

While you’re pondering that, we’d like to call your attention to a more revealing topic: Several thousand people posed nude in Mexico City for photographer Spencer Tunick (http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/05/07/100wir_a2bare001.cfm). Let’s hope they remembered to wear sunscreen.

Quiz answer: B. The fourth-grader took the experience in stride, showing off the now-dead specimens at school (http://www.heraldnet.com/stories/07/05/07/100wir_a2strange001.cfm). “Two spiders in my ear — what next?” he said. We have a word of advice for his mom: Keep him away from leeches.

If all this spider stuff has given you the heebie-jeebies, we recommend you shake it off by heading over to YouTube and watching the video of fainting goats (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZy4cCKcbaU). They’re endlessly entertaining, and best of all, they can’t crawl in your ears.

— Katie Mayer, Herald staff