Sumdood’s Best Friend

Actually, popular lore has it that Sumdood is afraid of dogs. Quite a few of my patients with a positive tattoo:tooth ratio keep vicious dogs for the express purpose of “keeping Sumdood from breakin’ inta mah trailer and stealin’ mah shit.”

Apparently, they make dandy guards for meth labs and marijuana patches, too.

No, I’m talking about this critter:

Let me introduce you to Loxosceles reclusa, commonly known as the brown recluse spider.

Normally, the brown recluse prefers dry woodpiles, cellars, closets and dark places in warmer climates from the southern midwestern US to the Gulf coast. Dark, warm and dry – that’s what our arachnid friend prefers.

But Sumdood, through selective breeding, recombinant DNA technology and his own Dark Powers, has developed a new strain of this shy, non-aggressive critter. This new subspecies, Loxosceles reclusa sumdoodicus, possesses none of the characteristics of its benign forebear.

It thrives in cold climates.

It loves casino hotel rooms and trailer parks.

It’s at home in cold, tiled bathrooms bathed in fluorescent light.

Rather than a cozy, dry woodpile full of small bugs and shredded bark, this critter prefers the groins, armpits and sweaty ass cracks of methamphetamine addicts and the hygienically impaired.

Rather than scuttle into a dark corner at the first sign of danger, reclusa sumdoodicus goes on the attack, often launching itself from light fixtures, toilet drains and slot machine levers, fangs bared and dripping with venom.

And oh what venom, folks! Sumdood has managed to breed a subspecies of spider that, instead of venom, secretes pure, virulent methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus.

Apparently, these spiders are almost all venom, because as soon as they bite, their dessicated bodies fall to the floor and crumble to dust. How else to explain the fact that we see dozens – nay, hundreds! – of spider bite victims every month, all of them with bite wounds teeming with drug-resistant bacteria, yet none of them ever bring in the spider?

Clearly, a darker force is at work here.

Our epidemiologists here at Podunk General Hospital, Nail Salon, Tire Repair and Crawfish Hut have isolated the target population for Sumdood’s campaign of arachnid-vectored germ warfare.

Seems that upwards of 75% of them are substance abusers with a low soap and toilet paper budget. The majority of them are unemployed, uninsured or on Medicaid. These spiders tend to have a taste for the flesh of the economically disadvantaged. You can see where I’m going with this.

Clearly, Sumdood is a Republican.

He is bent on wiping out the Democratic voter base while, at the same time, lining the pockets of Big Pharmacy through increased sales of powerful antibiotics like Cleocin and Vancomycin.

We suspect that Halliburton runs most of the clandestine spider hatcheries across the country, but thus far the Bush administration has stymied our investigation at every turn. We’ll keep you posted of new developments.

Until then, pay your insurance premiums, bathe frequently, kick your meth habit, and wipe your ass.

It keeps the killer spiders away.