I got bitten by a spider this morning, and I think it was a Black Widow.

I was cleaning out dried grass from the bottom of the lawn mower (the kids had mowed last time and didn't bother to clean off the grass clippings) and I felt something pinch my hand.  It wasn't incredibly painful, in fact I though I'd been poked with a splinter or something.  I shook the grass off my hand to see what I'd been jabbed with and a little black spider fell off onto the garage floor.  I had a look at it, and whilst it had that 'fiddle' kind of shape on it's back it wasn't red, it was more an orangey color.  So, I squashed it, had a look at my hand (didn't really see much there, exept a little red spot), and pressed on with my yard work. 

When I finshed and came inside, I started, to be blunt, to feel like crap.  I felt queasy, threw up, and now I feel like I've got the flu...my back aches, my shoulders ache, my head aches, my stomach aches, I still feel sick and I just feel 'blah'.

It wasn't until just now that I associated feeling rough with the spider.  I looked at my hand again, and there's a red dot in the middle of like a white area (like when you get bitten by a mosquito and you scratch it)...so I went and Googled some pictures of spiders and looked to see if there were any that looked like the one I found under my mower.

There were, sort of ...and the picture said it was a Black Widow.  It also said that whilst unpleasant, bites aren't usually fatal...I can just expect to feel rough for the rest of the day.  I'm not going to call my doc on his day off to tell him, I'll wait and if I still feel bad tomorrow I"ll make an appointment to go in and be seen.

So, that's how I spent my Sunday...getting nibbled on by an arachnid!