You can't load a web browser without stumbling upon reports of critters hanging out in produce these days. And a Connecticut woman may have hit creepy-crawly jackpot this week, when she found a BLACK WIDOW SPIDER crawling in a bag of organic grapes purchased from Whole Foods.
Nora Weiss bought the Sunview Organic Table grapes from the Fairfield Whole Foods branch on Monday, but when she opened the bag, she discovered that a live, poisonous spider had hitchhiked all the way from the fruit's home state of California. She took to Facebook to alert the masses, warning other Whole Foods shoppers to inspect their goods carefully and summing up her experience with, "AHHHHH!!! TOTALLY FREAKED ME OUT :/"
Michael Sinatra, a spokesman for the region, told us that organic produce is carefully inspected before getting sent to a store, but sometimes small insects can be missed. "While we do comb through all the products, this was a small bug. Certain insects are indigenous to certain plants," Sinatra said. "We encourage folks to take a look through the produce when they get home and wash it." He noted that Weiss received a full refund.
Spiders have been found in bags of fruit before, though black widow spiders, apparently known to hang out in Californian vineyards, are a little scarier to find running through your fruit salad than a run-of-the-mill Daddy Longlegs. And we can only imagine what these spiders will look like when they're subject to Gowanus water mutation! On the bright side, it looks like Weiss won't be ingesting any pesticide poison from the grapes, though we can't speak for the effects of the black spidow venom coursing through Weiss' body if the little guy had decided make a snack out of her finger.
