The Tale of Jon Junior

The Tale of Jon Junior

A Hell Beast (Courtesy of Wikipedia: Hobo Spiders)

It was near seven at night, the evening before I left for Japan. By all accounts it should have been a night for celebration, but then came a terrifying occurrence! Yes! It was so terrifying that the memory will haunt me for the rest of my days, and never again will I trust the sanctity that was bags from H&M. I am of course referring to the night we were joined by Jon Junior…

The night was warm, as summer nights often are, and a warm breeze drifted lazily through the open apartment door. My roommates and I played cards and jested with each other about various goings on. Earlier that day our fourth roommate Jon had moved out and left nothing but a medium sized paper H&M bag. After inspecting it to make certain that it contained no hidden treasure, we threw it on the ground, filing it for later recycling.

My cell rang, and so, very briefly I stepped outside.  The phone call lasted less than a minute, but in that time there was a scream bloodcurdling and piercing in nature. It was so loud that even the brazen woodland creatures that live on my porch ran the other way in terror. I did not know what to make of it, so tentatively I looked inside the apartment.

As I looked into the apartment, I felt my spider sense begin to tingle (Not like the Spiderman spider sense, but more of a proximity alarm for when there are spiders nearby. Can detect in up to a ten foot radius, for anything over the size of half an inch.) A cold chill ran down to the base of my spine, freezing me in place at the door.

Slowly I turned towards the direction of the cry and found my roommates in various states of battle readiness. Braden had taken a defensive position with his back against the pantry, moving away from Loren who was vigorously shaking a bag around in the air, who was also backed away from Ciara who was pointing and shouting incoherently.

It happened in a fog, slow motion as I watched a large brown lump fall from the bag and to the floor. I instantly recognized the little, furry foe for what it was and took up the traditional defensive stance of my people. Like a cat that had been stuffed with lightning I jumped to the highest point in the kitchen (the island) and bellowed as best I could, so as to intimidate my opponent. The result was no doubt closer to a young child screaming for their mother, but the end result was undoubtedly the same.

The apartment quickly fell into chaos as the massive (Maybe an inch long) beast roamed around the kitchen, claiming it as his new domain. I watched int terror as the creature claimed its domain, sniffing here and there (do spiders sniff?), and intimidating the various pieces of furniture that had the unfortunate luck to be nearby.

“KILL IT!” I screamed at Loren.

“He’s just trying to be friendly.” Said Loren, kneeling to get a closer look at the foul creature.  Loren has always had a soft heart when it comes to beasts of the wild, something I may never come to understand, especially when it is in a life or death situation like the one we faced that night.

This of course was met with a wonderful slew of curse words from everyone else, and then came the statement: “Is that a hobo spider?!” After which came much googling and various image comparisons, eventually leading to the conclusion that it was indeed a hobo spider.

For those who do not know what a hobo spider is, allow me to explain briefly. Hobo spiders, while rare, can be an extremely dangerous foe. Their venom is essentially like a roulette wheel, you might get pain, or you might get extreme pain, leading to the eventual necrosis of the affected area without treatment… A very painful end to be sure, one that can end in the severing of limbs, and other bodily harm.

So not only were we dealing with one of the foulest creatures on earth, we were dealing with one that could literally cause your skin to rot off and eventually end in all sorts of nasty dismemberment and other such macabre things.

In any case we held a brief meeting of the Roommate Council, and after much deliberation (Shouting) we decided that it was not in our best interest to go to war with the spider, instead that we should find a peaceful way to return him to the outside world. My method of choice would have been death by fire, but I was outvoted as I live in a house of Vegan Surrender Monkeys.

A plot was devised, in which we would capture the arachnid with a series of high stakes maneuvers, involving prowess with kitchenware that we did not possess. While there was much shouting and swiping, the end result was Jon Junior scuttling his way under the fridge, where he could no longer be reached. I don’t doubt that he sits there plotting his revenge every day now, waiting for the time when my foot gets to close, and he bites me to death.

To this day, we wonder about his whereabouts, but he has never been seen again…