@Chrisleech
First off, it used to be “12 spiders during their lifetime” then “12 spiders a year” now you’re up to 1000. That itself should tell you something about how seriously to take this.
Secondly, it’s entirely fake to begin with. Spiders don’t crawl into other creatures’ sleeping mouths. What kind of suicidal anti-survival instinct would that be? Next question that should come up if you’re a critical thinker is “how exactly would one study this, or acquire this ‘fact’?” Do we all sleep with a scientist hovering over our bed with a clipboard every night, counting spiders crawling into our mouths from our birth to our death? Obviously not.
This rumour started in the early 1990s. A college student did an experiment with this new fangled thing they were calling “emails”, about how fast rumours spread. She made up a top-10 list of absolutely absurd “facts”, one of which was the “12 spiders in our lifetime” one. She needed them to be absolutely unique and untrue so that she could be certain she was the only source of these “facts”. She sent the email out on her local college server to a few select people, waited a while, and then did surveys to see how many people in her college were now aware of these “facts” that she’d entirely made up. Apparently she got an A.
Unfortunately, one or two of the more infectious rumours (particularly the spider one, which scared the crap out of everyone) continued to spread well beyond her college campus, across the ever-expanding Internet, until it became weirdly accepted as a “fact” (despite that it makes no sense).
I’m OK with British spiders but Recluse Spiders are a reason not to visit the US and Funnel Web Spiders are one of the reasons that I don’t want to visit Australia.
Oh, there’s a *lot* more reasons than that. There’s any number of deadly snakes like the Yellow belly or Red Belly Black, Brown, Tiger, Taipan, Fierce. Then in the oceans there are Irukandji, Salt Water Crocodiles, the Blue Ring Octopus, Stone Fish, Great White Sharks, Barrier Reef Cone Shells, Scorpion Fish… I could go on but I think you get the picture.
Certain species of spider do bite, but even the venomous ones have venom intended to kill tiny bugs, not humans 1000x their size, if they even managed to penetrate the skin. You do not look like food to them; they would much rather run from you than bite you. (You may need to disregard this advice if you live in Australia, where every other organism in their crazy ecosystem is either poisonous or venomous. They’re kind of an ongoing exception).
Some people wake up with bite marks on their skin, and blame spiders, but that’s very unlikely. Much more likely, those are bites from pest bugs like tics, fleas, mosquitoes and bedbugs. The good news is, spiders EAT all of those pests that actually bite you, so leaving some around is actually to your advantage.
Reminds me of an SNL skit from the 90s where the whole thing was the recently deceased guy trying to get St. Peter to tell him what was the (1st, 2nd, 3rd… etc) worst thing he ate without knowing it, and St. Peter refusing to tell him because it would blow his mind.
If that doesn’t sound funny, it wasn’t. It was probably on after the Weekend Update segment. 🙂
Strangely, I remember that one…. and it turned into an entire “Worst Thing Ever” auction. Funny concept, but not in practice. Kind of like some of those Deep Thoughts monologues!
mmm extra protein..i went to a bug restuarnt once i had pan fried meal worms they taste like buttery walnuts and i had scorpian that tasted kind of like salty crunchy chicken and for dessert we had choclate covered crickets…these are all delicacies in some places. at first i thought it was gross but then i sucked it up and tried it and although not my first choice in foods i have to admit it was not half bad.
Sleep wearing a dust mask. A bit uncomfortable, but will ease one’s phobia in the matter and filter the air you inhale of dust and contaminates. Win-win.
but that’s killing! I don’t wish to waste a life, who knows who that spider used to be in a past life! I might be killing my grandfather!
it’s like the people saving worms in Tibet I don’t want to kill even the smallest creature
Well, it’s usually the other way around in that insects are a starting point for new souls. If, on the other hand, it was a serious demotion from human to insect, I, for one, would want to be killed as soon as possible in order to get it over with quickly. As I see it, the insect world is a living nightmare for those involved.
I think the poor spider is even funnier. I also feel more sorry for it than Shelly. At least she is staying in a nice, soft bed rather than being flung around a room. 🙂
Spiders are good. They eat mosquitoes … sorry to all the arachnophobes reading this. Artemisia, have you tried a broomstick? Get the spider to crawl onto it, and then release it out a window. Or squish it, but I don’t want to hear about that if you do. 😛
Anyway, LOVED this episode. Especially the sketch of the spider falling off the ceiling, poor thing.
Guh. There are little spiders called Harvesters up here, more leg than anything else, but they are prolific. They’ve been wandering across my bed lately and tickling my face while I sleep. Somehow I don’t think Shelly would be as calm about waking up with a handful of squished spider as I was this morning. Why can’t my cats chase the spiders instead of the moths that stay on the ceilings? :S I’m going to have to evict the arachnids if they don’t learn to stay off of me and not web where I walk, sleep, or eat!
I can’t even imagine being THAT scared of a spider! When I was in college, I lived in an area with a high risk of West Nile virus so my roomies and I had three pet spiders (yes, we’re all girls) who lived on our ceilings; one in the main living area, one in the kitchen, and one in the bathroom. They paid their share of the rent by eating bugs. We always warned our dates not to smoosh our unconventional roommates. You should have heard the screaming when one girl’s boyfriend saw our kitchen spider, Tiny (yes, that was an ironic name, he was big enough to cover a dime). That guy was such a wuss!
I can totally get behind that casting choice; I don’t know if he’ll pull off the role, but I think he’s got the chops. I think the director’s the one who’ll be skewered if it doesn’t work out. But then, I think of movies as being one degree of separation from Broadway anyway. If your great-grandparents saw John Barrymore as Hamlet, they’d have felt superior to your grandparents, who saw Lionel Barrymore’s Hamlet. Maybe your parents preferred Richard Burton as Hamlet, and you prefer Patrick Stewart. It’s a character! The fun is seeing how those shoes are filled 😉
i like how shelly looks in the first panel, just something about it makes me say, “that looks better” i guess its because despite being able to see her huge gun show, we can still see the feminine waist and hair
I’ve gotten massive spider bites from the ones in my house. I don’t know what kind they are, but I’m mildly allergic to them or they’re just *slightly* toxic, and I get a bit sick. Antihistamines help, so that’s why I think it’s an allergy to their venom, and why my skin reacts so badly. And no, it’s not bedbugs or something else icky, I’ve seen the spiders. My cat has pounced on, killed, and eaten them. It’s a little grotesque, but I praised the little hunter.
Sharpen those skewers boys and girls, but… I think Monica and Shelly are looking pretty well-drawn indeed today. And I love the childlike scrawl to show what their imaginations are doing!
Bleh… I wish I could say the same about the scorpions we’ve got down here. I had one fall from the ceiling and plop down right next to my arm. Scared the bejeezus out of me. And I’m quite sure it would have stung me had it actually landed ON my arm.
I do believe Shelly suddenly lost her glow. Way to kill a buzz, Monica. Now, during sex, she’ll be scanning the ceiling instead of concentrating on the task at hand. Wait til Shelly finds about one of your phobias. Paybacks are a female dog.
“I know an old woman who swallowed a spider,
it tickled and prickled and jiggled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
but I don’t know why she swallowed the fly –
perhaps she’ll die.” 😉
Don’t know if the author reads comments this far back – but shouldn’t that be “Catcher’s Mitt” in the first panel?
First time through the archives – Lovin’ it so far. Good blend of comedy, tragedy, drama, adventure and sexiness – I wish I could write half this well.
Sadly, not true. Spiders do bite sleeping people. Slept on the porch swing on night when I was a kid (KC got too hot to sleep inside sometimes in August in the 60s). Four bites in the upper lip, three bites in the lower lip, none anywhere else. I looked like a Ubangi for a couple weeks (which was kinda strange for a green-eyed redhead)… I slept on the front seat of the car till Dad left for work the rest of that summer.
With friends like Monica…
What else are friends for?
Could have been worse – Monica could have said “…and fell into your mouth while you were sleeping….”
Great, now I won’t be able to sleep… 😉
the human being swallows an average of about 1000 spiders a yer
…And at no time in your life will you ever be more then six feet from a spider.
Just one of those things I like to point out sometimes.
Did you know that 78.3% of statistics are made up on the spot?
True story.
@Chrisleech
First off, it used to be “12 spiders during their lifetime” then “12 spiders a year” now you’re up to 1000. That itself should tell you something about how seriously to take this.
Secondly, it’s entirely fake to begin with. Spiders don’t crawl into other creatures’ sleeping mouths. What kind of suicidal anti-survival instinct would that be? Next question that should come up if you’re a critical thinker is “how exactly would one study this, or acquire this ‘fact’?” Do we all sleep with a scientist hovering over our bed with a clipboard every night, counting spiders crawling into our mouths from our birth to our death? Obviously not.
This rumour started in the early 1990s. A college student did an experiment with this new fangled thing they were calling “emails”, about how fast rumours spread. She made up a top-10 list of absolutely absurd “facts”, one of which was the “12 spiders in our lifetime” one. She needed them to be absolutely unique and untrue so that she could be certain she was the only source of these “facts”. She sent the email out on her local college server to a few select people, waited a while, and then did surveys to see how many people in her college were now aware of these “facts” that she’d entirely made up. Apparently she got an A.
Unfortunately, one or two of the more infectious rumours (particularly the spider one, which scared the crap out of everyone) continued to spread well beyond her college campus, across the ever-expanding Internet, until it became weirdly accepted as a “fact” (despite that it makes no sense).
Shelly should realize that even if a spider tried to bite her, it would probably injure itself….
Ha ha! Now Shelly is never going to sleep ever again.
Me neither .
Well, except for the fact that spiders do bite…
Only if you roll over on it. Just it landing on you won’t cause it to bite you.
So, this would be a bad time for Katherine to show up and mention Brown Recluse spiders or northern black widows?
I’m OK with British spiders but Recluse Spiders are a reason not to visit the US and Funnel Web Spiders are one of the reasons that I don’t want to visit Australia.
Oh, there’s a *lot* more reasons than that. There’s any number of deadly snakes like the Yellow belly or Red Belly Black, Brown, Tiger, Taipan, Fierce. Then in the oceans there are Irukandji, Salt Water Crocodiles, the Blue Ring Octopus, Stone Fish, Great White Sharks, Barrier Reef Cone Shells, Scorpion Fish… I could go on but I think you get the picture.
Not to mention all the locals talk funny.
To simplify that. Australia is a portal to hell
My biggest reason is the NSW radar-gun bogans… 😛
That’s my only fear about spiders… I might accidentally roll over one in my sleep… or sit on it, etc.
@Biker Matt:
Same with me!! 😓
Certain species of spider do bite, but even the venomous ones have venom intended to kill tiny bugs, not humans 1000x their size, if they even managed to penetrate the skin. You do not look like food to them; they would much rather run from you than bite you. (You may need to disregard this advice if you live in Australia, where every other organism in their crazy ecosystem is either poisonous or venomous. They’re kind of an ongoing exception).
Some people wake up with bite marks on their skin, and blame spiders, but that’s very unlikely. Much more likely, those are bites from pest bugs like tics, fleas, mosquitoes and bedbugs. The good news is, spiders EAT all of those pests that actually bite you, so leaving some around is actually to your advantage.
Hm. Am I seeing a format-rework here? I like it…
Good, I wasn’t the only one who thought I was on a new site.
It does make it easier to skim the comments.
Reminds me of an SNL skit from the 90s where the whole thing was the recently deceased guy trying to get St. Peter to tell him what was the (1st, 2nd, 3rd… etc) worst thing he ate without knowing it, and St. Peter refusing to tell him because it would blow his mind.
If that doesn’t sound funny, it wasn’t. It was probably on after the Weekend Update segment. 🙂
Strangely, I remember that one…. and it turned into an entire “Worst Thing Ever” auction. Funny concept, but not in practice. Kind of like some of those Deep Thoughts monologues!
Wow . I remember that skit .
Is it a myth about how many insects a night that you swallow without knowing it? Right? It’s a myth! RIGHT!!!
No its not a myth. It is estimated that the average person swallow several hundred live insects in their sleep throughout their lifetime.
And live unharmed and happy and everything … there are things that you dont need to know to live on .. this one is part of it
mmm extra protein..i went to a bug restuarnt once i had pan fried meal worms they taste like buttery walnuts and i had scorpian that tasted kind of like salty crunchy chicken and for dessert we had choclate covered crickets…these are all delicacies in some places. at first i thought it was gross but then i sucked it up and tried it and although not my first choice in foods i have to admit it was not half bad.
Sleep wearing a dust mask. A bit uncomfortable, but will ease one’s phobia in the matter and filter the air you inhale of dust and contaminates. Win-win.
NOT FUNNY there’s a spider on the ceiling that I’m too phobic to deal with so I just stare at it . That’s the scenario I’m afraid of THANKS MONICA!
That’s why they make Raid. Spider doom in a can.
but that’s killing! I don’t wish to waste a life, who knows who that spider used to be in a past life! I might be killing my grandfather!
it’s like the people saving worms in Tibet I don’t want to kill even the smallest creature
Well, it’s usually the other way around in that insects are a starting point for new souls. If, on the other hand, it was a serious demotion from human to insect, I, for one, would want to be killed as soon as possible in order to get it over with quickly. As I see it, the insect world is a living nightmare for those involved.
Mini-Shelly in the second panel is friggin’ HILARIOUS. XD
2nd that! Mini-Shelly needs a flashback sequence!!
I think the poor spider is even funnier. I also feel more sorry for it than Shelly. At least she is staying in a nice, soft bed rather than being flung around a room. 🙂
Spiders are good. They eat mosquitoes … sorry to all the arachnophobes reading this. Artemisia, have you tried a broomstick? Get the spider to crawl onto it, and then release it out a window. Or squish it, but I don’t want to hear about that if you do. 😛
Anyway, LOVED this episode. Especially the sketch of the spider falling off the ceiling, poor thing.
Agreed, spiders keep homes safe from bug hordes. If a spider can find enough bugs to live on in my house, then it’s welcome to stay.
I see those exterminator reality shows, and just can’t help but wonder how long the people have been squashing every single spider they saw…
To me the spiders aren’t so bad, but the webs they make are.
but she knows this: http://wapsisquare.com/comic/over-there/. She still doesn’t care.
Spiders in the same room as me put me into kill mode.
My mother has been bitten by spiders in her sleep, twice. Both times, they got her face.
Well I’m sleeping under an umbrella from now on… thanks Paul!
Spiders! Spiders! Spiders! Spiders! EEEEEE!
spiders are good critters but still wouldn’t want one land on me in the night.
*shivers*
Love Pauls version of chibis. Hope to see them again.
Guh. There are little spiders called Harvesters up here, more leg than anything else, but they are prolific. They’ve been wandering across my bed lately and tickling my face while I sleep. Somehow I don’t think Shelly would be as calm about waking up with a handful of squished spider as I was this morning. Why can’t my cats chase the spiders instead of the moths that stay on the ceilings? :S I’m going to have to evict the arachnids if they don’t learn to stay off of me and not web where I walk, sleep, or eat!
I can’t even imagine being THAT scared of a spider! When I was in college, I lived in an area with a high risk of West Nile virus so my roomies and I had three pet spiders (yes, we’re all girls) who lived on our ceilings; one in the main living area, one in the kitchen, and one in the bathroom. They paid their share of the rent by eating bugs. We always warned our dates not to smoosh our unconventional roommates. You should have heard the screaming when one girl’s boyfriend saw our kitchen spider, Tiny (yes, that was an ironic name, he was big enough to cover a dime). That guy was such a wuss!
Good thing Shelly does not know this myth then:
http://insects.about.com/od/insectfolklore/qt/spiders-swallowed-while-asleep.htm
… sure, it’s not something that would actually happen, but has potential for keeping people awake at night 😛
Well, damn, I was using that as an excuse on why my diets wouldn’t work…
Perhaps you’re only swallowing the chocolate covered ones.
When did girls start calling each other dude? Is nothing sacred anymore?
Oh you don’t know the HALF of it. They’re doing a remake of True Grit, and Jeff Bridges is playing the role of Rooster Cogburn.
That’s right – “The Dude” is playing “The Duke.”
I can totally get behind that casting choice; I don’t know if he’ll pull off the role, but I think he’s got the chops. I think the director’s the one who’ll be skewered if it doesn’t work out. But then, I think of movies as being one degree of separation from Broadway anyway. If your great-grandparents saw John Barrymore as Hamlet, they’d have felt superior to your grandparents, who saw Lionel Barrymore’s Hamlet. Maybe your parents preferred Richard Burton as Hamlet, and you prefer Patrick Stewart. It’s a character! The fun is seeing how those shoes are filled 😉
Love the use of super deformed Shelly .
A little heavy on the under-chin line there – makes Shelly look a bit like she’s starting a goatee.
Heheheh . Naw . I was referring to the mini , side illustrations of her with the spider landing on her face .
i like how shelly looks in the first panel, just something about it makes me say, “that looks better” i guess its because despite being able to see her huge gun show, we can still see the feminine waist and hair
I’ve gotten massive spider bites from the ones in my house. I don’t know what kind they are, but I’m mildly allergic to them or they’re just *slightly* toxic, and I get a bit sick. Antihistamines help, so that’s why I think it’s an allergy to their venom, and why my skin reacts so badly. And no, it’s not bedbugs or something else icky, I’ve seen the spiders. My cat has pounced on, killed, and eaten them. It’s a little grotesque, but I praised the little hunter.
Hey! What’s this? Adam@Home declared spider week finished last Saturday. http://www.gocomics.com/adamathome/2010/09/04/
Seriously, there have been a lot of spider-themed comic strips lately. Is it just coincidence?
you sir are mean mean mean! Now i have another comic to read up ;p
Everyone is doing it – see this and the next.
Sharpen those skewers boys and girls, but… I think Monica and Shelly are looking pretty well-drawn indeed today. And I love the childlike scrawl to show what their imaginations are doing!
No argument here.
Now that you mention it, I guess it is supposed to resemble a child-like scrawl. But it’s a professional child-like scrawl.
Already know this feeling … for real – first hand.
Bleh… I wish I could say the same about the scorpions we’ve got down here. I had one fall from the ceiling and plop down right next to my arm. Scared the bejeezus out of me. And I’m quite sure it would have stung me had it actually landed ON my arm.
I do believe Shelly suddenly lost her glow. Way to kill a buzz, Monica. Now, during sex, she’ll be scanning the ceiling instead of concentrating on the task at hand. Wait til Shelly finds about one of your phobias. Paybacks are a female dog.
Heh. Justin will be scanning the ceiling, most of the time…
What happened to my avatar of Tina the Barista?
ROFL! Shelly’s a woman after my own heart. I have a firm rule: “If it’s got more than 4 legs, KILL IT! A lot..”
I see the site has been tweaked some.
As a fellow arachnophobe, I concur with Shelly to the power of 10.
“I know an old woman who swallowed a spider,
it tickled and prickled and jiggled inside her;
She swallowed the spider to catch the fly,
but I don’t know why she swallowed the fly –
perhaps she’ll die.” 😉
Hey, half of all our avatars have vanished.
Let’s see if this works –
Nope, went to get a new gravatar, jumped through the hoops, and no avatar. Typical.
Wait, there it is. Wow, what a time lag.
I wonder if Shelly sees all spiders like that?
Hey guys, Tina had a big spider crawl into her eyesocket, so who’s got guts against arachnids?
What if that happens…and your mouth is open??? 😛
Don’t know if the author reads comments this far back – but shouldn’t that be “Catcher’s Mitt” in the first panel?
First time through the archives – Lovin’ it so far. Good blend of comedy, tragedy, drama, adventure and sexiness – I wish I could write half this well.
I busted a gut when I saw the little drawings LOLOL
Sadly, not true. Spiders do bite sleeping people. Slept on the porch swing on night when I was a kid (KC got too hot to sleep inside sometimes in August in the 60s). Four bites in the upper lip, three bites in the lower lip, none anywhere else. I looked like a Ubangi for a couple weeks (which was kinda strange for a green-eyed redhead)… I slept on the front seat of the car till Dad left for work the rest of that summer.