{"id":3910,"date":"2017-07-17T08:00:18","date_gmt":"2017-07-17T06:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3910"},"modified":"2017-07-05T11:58:55","modified_gmt":"2017-07-05T09:58:55","slug":"spidey-sense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/?p=3910","title":{"rendered":"Spidey Sense"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page devoted to \u201cSpiderman\u2019s Powers and Equipment, specifically focusing on his \u201cspidey sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSpider-Man’s “spider-sense” manifests in a tingling feeling at the base of his skull, alerting him to personal danger in proportion to the severity of that danger. For instance, a little tingling such as a happenstance passing by of an enemy would prompt Peter to be alert, while a strong tingling, sometimes to the point of being painful, is interpreted as a need to take immediate evasive action on a deadly threat. It appears to be a simultaneous response to a wide variety of phenomena\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s now, as I sit at my desk two days before I embark for Japan that I develop similar symptoms and premonitions of danger and doom. The tingle, strong today, spasms in my neck, the \u201cphenomenon\u201d eliciting the “spidey sence” was this sentence, seen on another website:<\/p>\n

\u201cUntil quite recently Japan had no spider species that could be deadly to humans. That changed around 1995, when the first redback spiders were found in Osaka.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

As I mentioned in my last post, I have a number of pre-travel rituals. One of these is a study on the arachnid population at my destination. This was perhaps spurred by a run-in with a terrifyingly large wolf spider or a junior tarantula (we didn\u2019t ask it) in Mexico. As we coolly shrieked for it to leave, I decided to never travel again without knowing what family members of my arch-nemeses\u2019 class were living there.<\/p>\n

This greatly aggravated my cousin Alex, with whom I did a camping and fishing tour around the west when I was twenty. Still somewhat fresh (3 years) from my Mexican spider standoff, I eagerly quizzed each park ranger about the eight-legged residents of their particular national park. This was in the back country of Montana, Idaho, Oregon, and the temperate rain forests of Washington, not to mention a placed reassuringly called The Badlands, so there was a real possibility of running into a big scary spider. It should be mentioned that the only dangerous spider we saw on the trip was a black widow in West Virginia, about 8 hours from our home. This did little to fill me with a confident ease. The bastards were everywhere.<\/p>\n

To be honest, my relationship with spiders has developed over the years. I know that spiders are a great part of the ecosystem, they get rid of other pests, and have no real ill will towards me. For this and other reasons, I no longer kill them in my house, I simply let them be as long as they are not in my bed or on my person. When Bela the Cat eats one, I feel a little sad, but celebrate the permanence of the circle of life by patting her on the withers.<\/p>\n

Still, none of this has stopped me from looking into the arachnids in the Middle East, India, and Sicily, of Germany, England, Lyon, and, now, Japan. Due to my obsessive research, I have an in-depth knowledge of what sort of spiders live on four continents, though I haven\u2019t seen one in person. Actually, make that six continents, since spiders are why I have veered away from South America and the sole reason I would never consider visiting the nest of arachnid death and terror that is Australia.<\/p>\n

Not that that matters anymore, because the redback spider has recently moved from Australia to Japan, where its beady-eyed legions are spreading through the cities no doubt killing people in droves.<\/p>\n

It’s clear: they’re coming for me.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following is an excerpt from the Wikipedia page devoted to \u201cSpiderman\u2019s Powers and Equipment, specifically focusing on his \u201cspidey sense.\u201d \u201cSpider-Man’s “spider-sense” manifests in a tingling feeling at the base of his skull, alerting him to personal danger in proportion to the severity of that danger. For instance, a little tingling such as a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3911,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/damiengaleone.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/japan-spider.jpg?fit=800%2C574&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1EvEu-114","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3910"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3912,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3910\/revisions\/3912"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3911"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/damiengaleone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}