Unloved, but that’s all right.

I gotta say, it’s not the greatest feeling in the world, to be so needed and yet to be so feared and hated. This world is not made for someone as tiny as me. Granted, I am not without my weapons, but that’s not the point. The point is, I genuinely don’t care about you, but as I go about my business, I bring about mostly good things to your world. I’m really beautiful and fascinating if you would just get to know me. But you don’t see it. I freak you out. Why do you hate and fear me so much?

I am but a humble spider. I come in many shapes, sizes and colors — but then, so do you. I am incredibly strong, especially for my size. Even an average one of my sisters and brethren is able to lift 200 times their body weight. I’m not bragging — if I still looked like me and was made of the same stuff, but somehow became as large as a human, I’d be much, much weaker than a human. So, what I am saying is your horror, sci-fi movie makers really got it wrong — you’d have absolutely nothing to fear from me.

Well, I guess it’s not all about brute force. It never has been for us spiders. I mean, most spiders, to some degree, are venomous, but honestly, primarily there are only a few species known to be extremely dangerous to humans: the black widow (and the brown widow and red widow), the brown recluse, and those guys that hang out in bananas. But a powerful punch of neurotoxins is seldom fatal, although a human could possibly lose a limb. Boo hoo. I get stepped on, sprayed, swatted, lit on fire, fed to pets — on the daily — and about a gazillion of…