A talk about brown recluses and death and stuff

This week marked the first presidential debate of the 2020 season, so I think it’s a great time to talk about why I’m currently converting my dining room into a garage.

All because I decided to clean.

Saturday, while my husband was mowing the yard, and just before the ill-fated Texas Tech vs. Texas game, I thought I’d help and straighten up the garage. I got a towel off of a cooler and walked it out to the driveway to shake it out, only when I turned it over I found the biggest brown recluse I’ve seen in my life hanging on to the towel like a bat under the Congress St. Bridge in Austin. It was huge, with a leg span of a silver dollar - large for a brown recluse, trust me.

The brown recluse also had that attitude that everything that walks on two to eight legs has taken on in 2020.

Now, I’ve known two people in my life who have been bitten by a brown recluse, my brother and my husband. Both gave it a less than satisfactory grade. I didn’t want to take the test.

Normally I’m not afraid of spiders, not even a brown recluse. But this one was different, and with the very distinctive 2020 vibe I’ve learned to intuit as either deadly or make me question my every life choice.

So I stopped my husband from mowing, and he dared question that it was really brown recluse until he saw it. He killed it six times for me and I still asked him to burn it with fire.

Years ago, my family doctor, Dr. Keith, mentioned during a visit that he really wanted a brown recluse encased in whatever that clear stuff is that you make paper weights out of. I lived in the country at the time and I told him I was pretty sure I had them in my attic and would bring him one. Sure enough, I got home and pulled down the ladder to the attic and one was waiting on the eighth step, so I swept him into a Cool Whip bowl and put him in the freezer. I did deliver him to Dr. Keith who verified that I lived with brown recluses. So, needless to say, I’ve never had an unhealthy fear of them.

Until I saw the new super genus Covid Brown Recluse Model 2020 and now I think I have to move, or at least move where my vehicles live.

But I did get some timely advice from my friendly personal entomologist Brant Baugh, who if you remember, held my hand through the Murder Hornet debacle, and I’m passing it on to you.

It was a response to a Facebook post I made about said spider, and I quote, “ ....I’m watching UT beating up on my Red Raiders... Clean out the garage..spray everything with Bifenthrin.. read and follow all labeled instructions...AND..when was the last time y’all have heard of anyone dying of brown recluse..I think if it were common, Kari would be reporting about it.”

I am reporting that I checked the death rate on brown recluse bite deaths in the United States, and can confirm there has been one death in the past decade, but it wasn’t in my garage last Saturday.

Consider it reported.