Irrelevant Cheetah

You’ve probably read the statistics: Every year, the average person eats an average of six spiders. Or maybe you haven’t read the reports, and I just ruined your breakfast. At any rate, there it is: annually, half a dozen arachnids fall victim to you and your gaping maw, you spider-killer, you.

You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

It leads one to wonder, though. Exactly how are these spiders being eaten? And how are these averages calculated?

Okay, first things first. I, for one, am not going around popping spiders in my mouth. For that matter, I’m not sure anyone (over the age of two, that is) does. I’ve heard of chocolate-covered ants, and sautéed grasshoppers, but I’ve never heard of spiders as a culinary temptation, though one of those bird spiders the size of a dinner plate would probably make a nice, hairy omelet.

So if they’re not eaten deliberately, they must be eaten accidentally, and aside from spider infestations in my Cheerios, which I’d rather not think about, I’m guessing they fall into your mouth when you’re sleeping. This, folks, is evolution at work, because the only spider that’s going to fall into your mouth is a clumsy spider. You probably never realized it was possible to trip while you’re walking on the ceiling, but it doubtless happens, and the spider-chewing results are helping to eliminate the clumsiness gene from your local arachnid population. There’s something to put on my resume: “Helping spider evolution to progress in my house – May 2001 to present.”

The other question this statistic brings up is averages. How is this average calculated? You see, going back to the whole clumsy-spider hypothesis, someone who sleeps (and snores) with their mouth wide open is bound to catch more Daddy Klutzylegs than someone who sleeps quietly on their side, never uttering a peep. This skews the averages towards those with sleep apnea and big mouths, doesn’t it? And what if there are people, perhaps in some remote part of the world, who eat spider-kabobs on a regular basis? Because their annual spider intake may be on the order of tens or hundreds of hairy, eight-legged corpses, once again it skews the averages significantly. Maybe us non-spider-eaters don’t actually eat six spiders a year, it’s just that around 36 billion spiders are eaten worldwide every year, and so we all have to share the blame equally.

I also find myself wondering, if this is the case, how those 36 billion spiders are prepared. Spider cakes? Fried, salted and buttered? Someone needs to contact either Rachael Ray or Emeril and ask for recipes. I sense an untapped market here.