There's a SPIDER in my dreads!

Tis the holiday season, and that means time with family. Unfortunately, family does not always love your dreads as much as you do.

I visited my sister's house with my mother over Thanksgiving, and my sister interrupted the conversation to say, "Whenever I look at your hair, I think about spiders." Amazingly enough, my mother immediately agreed, saying she felt the same way!

Then my sister told me a dread horror story:

There once was a dreadhead who was very sick. He went from doctor to doctor, and none of them knew what to do for him. They tried everything, but they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Eventually, they decided to do an MRI to see if he had something wrong in his brain. They told him the MRI would work better if he shaved his dreads, and although he loved his dreads, he was so tired of being sick he felt any sacrifice that would help was worth it.

When he shaved his head, they realized what was wrong. His head was completely covered in spider bites! A black widow had nested in his dreads, and she bit him at night while he slept, slowly killing him with her lethal poison. The end.

Creepy, right? Yeah, I was shivering when I went to sleep that night on my sister's couch thinking, "Could a spider really crawl into my dreads without me realizing?"

I was creeped out, and I almost wanted to brush my dreads out right there to avoid any future horror stories coming true. I had to stop myself and ask, "Okay, seriously, would a spider really be able to live in my hair? Does the fact that I have dreads rather than free hair make that much of a difference?"

Frankly, the answer is, "No! A spider could not live in my dreads."

Would a spider crawl over my face and through my hair in the middle of the night? Well, since apparently (I have no idea who came up with this statistic or how they know it's true, but I hear it a lot), we actually end up eating several spiders in our sleep over the course of our lives, I guess I'd have to say that it's likely there are spiders crawling over me at night, whether I have dreads or not. They've never tried to house themselves in my hair before, so why would they now? Well, maybe dreads look more cozy than straight hair? Maybe, but in that case wouldn't course hair and curly hair also look more cozy than straight hair?

Still, let's say that for some reason, dreads look like a good home, and the spider on the move decides not to return to his own cozy home that night (seriously unlikely seeing as they usually house themselves in places that have gone untouched for months, like undusted corners and inside huge stacks of firewood). So, a spider moves in, defying all odds. Would that spider survive?

No, if defying all odds, a spider decided to leave his cozy nest in a safe, unnoticed corner of my house and move right into my hair, that spider would not live long. Why? Because I WASH my hair, and I FIDDLE with it (because I'm one of those silly people that always has to be fidgeting with something - playing with my hair, my ring, my necklace, or tapping my foot, wiggling my toes, etc). That little spider would be poisoned with shampoo and washed down the drain or squashed in no time!

But in all seriousness, I don't know why a spider would leave his cozy nest for a dangerous one close to me (if he would, why not take up house in my bedsheets or the towels under my sink? I don't touch those very often, and they're nice and soft like dreads, with cozy room to snuggle, but I've never found a spider or a mouse or any other thing in my towels), so I don't think I'll ever find myself squashing a spider in my hair or cleaning it out and washing it down the drain.

And that's all I have to say about that. No dreadhead urban legends for me! I'm not so easily scared as that.

SPECIAL NOTE:  Wow! I have blog followers! I am so incredibly honored that you five have decided my posts are interesting enough to warrant bookmarking! So, this creepy urban legend post is dedicated to you (forgive the ick-factor, please!). Thank you for following, and I will definitely try to post a little more often, since I know I'm not just posting to keep myself busy. Again, thank you guys very much: Robin A Burrows, Deena Barrett, Juliana Haygert, Kate Spencer, and Lily Mann. I love following all of you guys on twitter, by the way! :D