Can Spiders Break Your Toes?

Poor Mark. He was only trying to save me from a spider. And now he has broken toes.

We were in his parents' backyard. In the hot tub. We noticed a huge spiderweb housing an GINORMOUS spider. Out I jumped to get a better look. (Yes - I was being brave.) On my way back in the tub I noticed a smashed frog on the hot tub cover. Still fairly fresh. (ew) Out jumps Mark to grab the hose to spray off the nasty smashed frog before the sun fried it to the cover. Oops - through the spiderweb he goes. He begins flailing around and dives to the ground - all while I erupt with laughter. Mark realizes the spider is still in the half of the web NOT covering his face and recovers his composure, sprays the smooshed froggie off the cover, returns the hose and rejoins me in the hot tub.

Enter spider #2.

I look up and to my horror there is an even larger, more horrible, more evil spider dangling just overhead. How we missed this one to begin with I'll never know. We jumped out of the hot tub once again. Mark went after the hose - once again - to spray the vile sucker down. He did well to dodge that big 1/2 remaining spider web on his way to the hose, but after he picked up the hose, he somehow managed to bang his toes horrendously hard into a retaining wall (or something of the sort). As he turned in sheer agony - hopping and yelling - he met up with the spider web again. I didn't realize he'd hurt himself and was rolling with laughter over the fact that he'd gone through the web twice. (I don't think this made him happy.) Once again he regained composure, sprayed the spider away, put away the hose and we both got back into the tub.

After looking at how quickly his toes were swelling, we thought he may have broken at least one or two. We sat back, tried to relax and Mark elevated his poor throbbing foot. All at once Mark's eyes became large. I looked up and behind me and there IT was. That hideous THING was back for more, dangling not more than inches over our heads. I was up and out of that hot tub as though my life depended on it. (And it may well have.)

We were done. Both of us. We headed for home. (That was the night of the freak wind storm.)

A couple days later Mark was still in so much pain that I insisted he see a doctor. After x-rays it was confirmed that there were indeed fractured toes.

So yes, spiders CAN break your toes. My husband is living proof.