The Time I Was Attacked By A Brown Recluse Spider.

There is such a thing as smoking too much weed.

Some people who are reading that first line will disagree with me. They’ll give me blah blah blah Libertarian party blah blah blah Colorado blah blah blah Jesse Ventura. Good for them. We all know they are lying to themselves. Sure there’s nothing wrong with getting stoned but it can get even the best of us sometimes.

I recall one such instance from days as an old university chap that reminds me why it’s good to toke a night off. Back in college I was quite the little puffer. As were most of my colleague, for fuck’s sake we were in The School of Media Arts and Studies, if that degree doesn’t say stoner I don’t know what else does. We gave the art majors a run for their money, that’s for sure.

This specific instance occurred during the spring of 2012. It was that time of year were spring is on the forefront of everyone’s mind. The shadows of winter were regressing behind the billowing veil of summer’s warm embrace.

At that time in my toking career my friend and I would frequent a spot along the bank of the river, which ran through our small university town. It was concealed and comfortable and gave a stunning view of the bridge. So as we had done many other times, my friend and I sat down and sparked up a joint. I was sitting criss-cross applesauce. After we finished the first of two joints we brought, my friend and I got on the path along the river and started to walk.

All of a sudden I felt a tingle and numbness on my ankle. I looked at my ankle in the low light and squinted. Oh my god, there was a spider bite on my ankle. It was there, two small indents of an evil little arachnid. I began to hyperventilate. This must have been the poison coursing through my veins. I had watched enough Animal Planet documentaries to know I was in big trouble. In a matter of minutes….I would be dead. I looked back down at my ankle, Oh no, the bite had gotten larger. Being the armchair scientist I am, I whipped out my phone and began WebMding the symptoms of a black widow spider bite. Shit, my ankle is tingling even more. This is especially aggressive venom. I searched through the inquiries to deduce whether the black widow’s venom would kill me. All the while my friend is freaking out trying to convince me it’s all my head. What does he know? He’s just a biology major. He doesn’t even have an iPhone! Soon I begin to realize my situation is much, much worse. From my WebMD cross-examination skills I realized I had in fact been bitten by the infamous Brown Recluse Spider. This spider has no venom, but it will decay the flesh surrounding a bite until it turns gang green and falls off. I can’t lose my ankle! I need it for walking! My chest starts to constrict, the Recluse’s non-existent venom must be constricting my lungs. I know I am in trouble. I tell my friend “I need to go to the hospital”. I start to cross the street but stumble and almost pass out. I don’t have much longer, the venom’s going to make me unconscious.

I get to the other side of the street. My friend is now helping me walk at this point. The venom has rendered my leg unusable. I look around and take it all in, the trees, the road, the baseball field. I then say to my friend or maybe myself, in the calmest voice imaginable (remember I am stoned) “So this is it, this how I’m going to die”. My friend is now even more freaked out because I am no longer freaking out but instead accepting my inevitable death from The Brown Recluse Spider.

We finally get to the hospital. My friend asks me if I can walk in, which I can. He leaves and I walk into the hospital. I very quickly say to one of the doctors “Hello, I think I was bitten by a black widow spider”. My eyes are bloodshot from the venom, which does that, I swear I read that on WebMD. They take me back into the exam room and one of the nurses looks at my ankle. He looks thoroughly at it for 5 minutes before saying “I don’t see a spider bite.” I swear there’s a spider bite there, he’s just an incompetent nurse. I need a real doctor!”

The nurse leaves and for the next 20 minutes I sit alone. I begin to convince myself the hospital has run out of anti-venom and the doctors are just waiting for me to die because there is nothing else they can do. They could at least tell me I am going to die. Appalachian hospitals suck. Then I start to wonder if they know I’m high and are calling the cops who are going to come and take me to jail, WHILE I’M POSIONED WITH VENOM!! Yes I still know for a fact a spider has poisoned me. Though the thought begins to creep that perhaps I made mistake. I had been feeling very anxious lately.

The Dr walks in and says “Sir do you suffer from a history of anxiety?” Oh no….no I didn’t just do this did I? I didn’t just wander into a hospital stoned thinking a non-venomous spider had bitten me? No, I did do that. The look on my face must have been priceless. The Dr gave me Xanax and sent me on my way. 5 weeks later my parents got an $800 hospital bill. “Sorry dad, I thought I had broken my ankle playing basketball”

My parents know I hate basketball.

JT Esterkamp