A young woman was sunbathing on the beach and was just about to drop off to sleep, when she felt an insect running along her jawbone and then down her neck. She brushed it away, and thought nothing more of it.

After about a week, she noticed what she thought was a pimple growing and growing. The skin was inflamed and it looked like a blister. Then, one day, she was blow-drying her hair and hit the inflamed spot with her hair dryer. The blistered skin broke open and hundreds of tiny white baby spiders and pus came pouring out of the wound!

It seems that while she was sunbathing, her pores had enlarged enough that a mama spider could deposit her egg sac in one. They incubated under her skin until she smacked herself in the jaw with the hair dryer!

Prior to Bubble Yum, bubble gum was hard and took a fair bit of vigorous mastication to render it into a suitably soft bubble-blowing state. Bubble Yum was a breakthrough, a gum that was ready for bubble blowing after being chomped only a few times. As to how soft it was, even a little tyke could squish a block of Bubble Yum between his fingers.

Any confection that revolutionary is going to spawn speculation among the younger set. “Why is it so chewy?” was the question on everyone’s lips. It didn’t take long for kids to invent a plausible answer. There had to be something chewy in there. What’s more chewy than spider eggs? By the spring of 1977, sales had slipped noticeably. Rumors that Bubble Yum contained spider’s eggs or was made from their webs abounded.

When he arrived at the barber shop, he sat down nervously and waited for his haircut to begin. Half-way through the cut, he jumped up, screaming, and ran out of the shop.

His wife found him dead hours later on their door step, a huge nest of red-backed spiders crawling out of his tangled locks. When the barber was cutting his hair, he upset a nest of poisonous spiders living in the man’s hair that bit him to death.

Another Version

Lily had to go to a very grand party so she saved up some money to get her hair done. She went into the salon and when the stylist asked what she wanted done to her hair, Lily showed her a pictrue of a model her hair done up like candy floss. The hair dresser put Lily’s hair into this elaborate hair-do. She gladly paid her and enjoyed herself at the party that night. She got so many compliments on her hair, she decided to keep the style as long has she could – she sprayed it everyday and slept on it at night.

Three weeks later Lily’s head began to feel sore. She went back to the salon and asked them to cut her hair and as the stylist began to work, Lily felt a sharp pain. Thinking the woman had cut her with her scissors, she lept from the chair and ran out of the salon.

Lily was later found dead at her house. A poinsonous spider had crawled into her hair while she slept and laid it’s eggs. When the hairdresser upset the nest, the spiders had bitten her to death.

Another Version

A sultan had chosen a new young woman to add to his harem. There was a ceremony that the young woman had to undergo as was the custom. The sultan’s first wife was the one who tended to the new maid, dressing her up and fixing her hair.

While she was fixing her hair, she made no attempts to be gentle. The young maid winced as she felt pulling and pinching on her scalp, sure that the older woman was jealous of her.

Finally, after finishing with the headress the older wife backed away to let the young woman stand. But the younger mistress could not hold herself up, and found herself swooning, the room blacking out.

Later her lifeless body was found by the slaves, poison oozing from her black locks. The first wife had attached a deadly scorpion to the woman’s scalp, and the scorpion had stung her several times, taking her life.

Penny C. Fregington from Kansas City, KS (version 1)
Angela Robertson from Glasgow (version 2)
Miranda Rogers from San Antonio, TX (verison 3)