Tuesday, August 16, 2005

Einer Kleiner Nachmittag Debunking

One of my students recently asserted, in response to my expressed hatred of spiders, that human beings swallow an average of eight spiders per year. Having heard this one before and with my own spider sense (or bullshit detector) tingling, I took it upon myself to check it out.

Find the answer here. Hint: don't you think natural selection would have taken care of predators dumb enough to crawl inside the mouths of larger predators? Spiders have infested the planet for millions of years, and show tremendous survival skills. I mean, yes, there could be the odd Inspector Clouseau spider, but his clumsiness and stupidity would injure other spiders, and predators who were trying to kill him, rather than himself. (Inspector Clouseau spider taps lightly at a human's lips: "Kato?") This would drive the Inspector Dreyfus spider crazy and he'd try to kill the Inspector Clouseau spider and this would inevitably lead to me extending this joke too far.

Also, if this were true don't you think that would mean waking up with an unswallowed spider in your mouth at least once? Men, have you ever had this happen to you? Man at water cooler: "I'm having the worst day. I was brushing my teeth and hooked this" (Picture of Spider). Well BILLY MAYS HERE TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE SPID-Y-B-GONE MOUTH GUARD IN A VOICE SO LOUD THEY CAN HEAR ME ON NEPTUNE! WOW!!!!

Yes, but then, what about the nose?

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