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…

The Curious Case of the Apartment Monster in the Night

While not acutally a chupacabra,
the chihuahua is the closest known relative

chu·pa·ca·bra
CHo͞opəˈkäbrə/
Noun1. an animal said to exist in parts of Latin America, where it supposedly attacks animals, esp. goats.

The following story is so fresh that I can hardly speak of it without my hear beginning to pound. It was a dark and stormy night(It was a clear night with no wind.), lightning crashed and thunder boomed (it didn't.)  Everyone in the apartment had gone to bed, and there was nothing to keep me company but the occasional creak of the aging floorboards.

Rather than exercising common sense I was staying up late and reading the walking dead by flashlight. Inevitably this led to several instances where I would jump out of my skin at a passing car, or a creaking board, thinking that the zombie apocalypse had begun. While this may seem uncommon, I can assure you it is a regular occurrence for me, and it has done nothing to stop me from late night reading…

Everything was fairly calm, until the unthinkable happened. The cone of silence enveloping the apartment shattered; there came a growl from the hallway. For once, this is all true. From somewhere inside the apartment I heard a fairly large growl that sounded as if it had come from a small to mid-sized animal. In the past I had never been one to fear the chupacapra, but at that moment I found myself wishing I had a goat to sacrifice to the hallway monster.

I froze in bed, trying not to make a sound, lest the beast hear me and come searching. Trying to be as quietly as possible I pulled my phone out of my dresser and sent out a quick text. It read: “ARE YOU GUYS MAKING F*&^ing GROWLING NOISES?!”  It may seem strange, but this happened before, and would not have been all that out of character.

As I waited for a return to my message, I spent the minutes convincing myself that I hadn’t heard anything and that I was only being crazy. You can’t possibly have heard growling… What kind of animal would come into the apartment and then growl angrily?! Does that even make any sense?! The answer to all of these was of course, no, it did not make sense, and the entire idea was illogical. Slowly I managed to bring my racing heart down to a normal level and settle back into bed.

I was about to fall asleep when a buzz came from the top of my dresser.  My blood turned to ice and I felt woozy. Carefully, I picked up the phone and opened the message. It read: “No, we heard it too!” The entire room spun. It had become very clear that we were indeed dealing with a terrifying beast that had managed to somehow infiltrate the apartment. While it wasn’t exactly Fort Nox, we locked the doors most of the time, and it was hard to imagine a way in which an animal larger than a mouse could have got in.

I had to act fast. Using my mad ninja skills, I jumped from the bed and ran to the wall where I have a small machete mounted. I removed it from its scabbard and called my roommate. The voice that answered was bleary, and far too calm for the events at hand.

“Meet me in the hallway in three seconds.”

“No way man, I’m not going out there!”

“I’m not going out there alone! F&*$ that!”

“Here talk to Ciara” He handed the phone to my other roommate, and I was met with more reluctance.

“I’m in bed, I’m not coming out into the hallway.” Desperate for any sort of camaraderie, I called out to the wall separating me from my other roommate Braden. I yelled twice and received no response other than laughing from Ciara on the other side of the phone.

“Fine, I’m going out there. Get ready guys!” I stood next to my door, tensed, machete in hand, ready to take down the chupacapra that was most likely waiting outside to eat me. “ONE, TWO, THREE!” I burst through the door making stabbing motions at the air, just in case the beast had decided to charge me, or had heard my plan to attack it. You can never be too sure that the creature you are fighting hasn’t gained sentience and understood your method of attack. I’ve seen deep blue sea; it did not go well for them. On that side note, please God, never genetically engineer super-intelligent sharks…

As I went from door to door, kicking them open (They were all slightly ajar, so they didn’t break), I continued yelling, and swiping in large arcs at nothing. It was terrifying, but it was also the closest I have ever been to real life Mortal Kombat, which was pretty sweet.

A Hill People Pickaxe

Emboldened by my bravery roommate Loren stepped out of his room. He was armed with a pickaxe that for some reason he kept in his room. Also it is worth mentioning that this pickaxe is very sharp on one side, and looks like it is more a tool hill-people use for killing unsuspecting tourists, rather than something a mountain climber or a miner would use. Even if there is a monster in my apartment, the pickaxe might need to be higher on the worry priority list.

Now with safety in numbers, we began to check inside the other rooms which had previously been far too dark and scary to go in alone.  While we were looking we were joined by my other roommate Braden, who had no doubt been woken by the shouting and door kicking…

As we searched several theories were formed as to what the monster might have been. I of course was still championing the idea that it was some sort of aggravated raccoon filled with bloodlust or a super-intelligent half shark, half chupacapra, but my roommates were more practical. For instance: Loren had seen a rat running around outside the apartment earlier that day, and thought that it might have stowed away in a couch that we were “airing out” that day… It’s college ok? We air out couches to make them less gross.

Another idea was that it could have been the water heater making gurgling noises, but I wasn’t having any of it. After a search around the apartment and the porch we came to the conclusion that if it had been an animal, it was now long gone, or scared half to death. I was not appeased by this conclusion, and so Braden had the idea of setting a sort of trap for it.

We laid out sunflower seeds on a plate in the middle of the hallway on a plate in a perfect circle. The idea being that if any of them were disturbed then there was indeed an animal in the apartment, and that we would go hunting again. I also made both of them swear that if the noise happened again, we would meet in the hallway in three seconds, weapons in hand.

With that, we all went to sleep, the others no doubt peacefully, me with the machete next to the bed, and an ear out for scary creatures….

The next morning the seeds were undisturbed, but I still maintain that somewhere within our walls the apartment chupacapra lies in wait for when we let our guard down…

Voodoo Donuts: Catnip for Drum Circles?

The following tale comes from a time in which I was working as an intern in downtown Portland. Of course, like the rest of my life, this company was far from normal. Firstly hey had a John Hammond(Jurassic Park) mentality: “Spared no expense.”, and secondly that all employees were required on most days to wear a full suit and tie.  With these two ideas in mind we can begin our journey.

The sun beat down like the drummer of Metallica, threatening to rip open my face with its fiery beams of heat and death. On the mean(weird) streets of Portland I felt out of place in a three-piece-suit. My target was over seven blocks away, the sun was in the middle of the sky, and I had picked that day to wear black. It was going to be a journey of Lord of the Rings-like proportions.

The office had given me the mission of procuring $100 worth of doughnuts from Voodoo (Don’t know it? A. Where have you been? B. Here’s a link http://voodoodoughnut.com/index.php). When I say that they said buy $100 worth, I mean that they gave me a one-hundred dollar bill and said go…

Now, Portland may be one of the safer cities to do this sort of thing is, but it still isn’t the ideal place to be walking in a suit, with large amounts of cash, but as I mentioned earlier, I was an intern and did not question orders. I smiled and went.

As it turned out the journey there was not so taxing. While I did get some strange looks from the hipsters and beatniks wandering between coffee shops, I was not robbed or beaten senseless(Doesn’t really happen in Portland, but I think by this time we have established that I have some strange fears.) When I got to Voodoo Donuts, I found that as usual there was a sizable line outside.

The Voodoo Sign, With Filters and Things (#HipsterMuch?)

For those who are unfamiliar with Voodoo, no matter what time of day, there will always be a line. Sometimes it's fifteen minutes, other times it's two hours, but it's always there. With donuts ranging from: Captain crunch, bubblegum, cock and balls, etc, Voodoo has become one of the most popular sites to visit in Portland. On a regular basis there is a procession of confused businessmen and spunky travelers lined up around the block, just to get their hands on the magic inside those holes(Their slogan, kind of).

In any case I waited in the sweltering heat, feeling my suit ruining beneath the heavy black jacket I wore. While I’m sure taking the jacket off would have been a safe bet, it was my first year at the company, and I still believed that one of my bosses was lurking around every corner to check if I was following protocol.

As I reached the front of the line I was beckoned to the front counter by one of the kindly punk rockers working the register. Being the adult I am, buying a hundred dollars’ worth of donuts was just another mundane experience for me… Or I giggled like a three-year-old, slapped the hundred dollar bill on the counter and shouted: “I want this many!” Imagine it however you will, but I assure you it was much closer to the second.

The clerk was clearly very enthusiastic about creating over five boxes of assorted doughnuts, but still managed one of the longest and angst filled sighs that I have ever heard. I feel it is necessary to mention that I have never received treatment like this since, and most of the Voodoo employees rock! Ten minutes later I found myself looking like a balancing act in a sugar laden circus.

Balancing my five boxes of donuts, I walked precariously back into the afternoon heat. Somehow, the boxes did nothing to mitigate the heat, or make my journey any easier. Instead of the sweet smell of bacon maple propelling me to victory, it instead attracted my first obstacle. As I was walking past another Portland favorite, Stumptown Coffee, I found myself being swarmed by a group of homeless people (About three).

“Hey Little Wall Street.” Referring I’m assuming to my cropped hair, and suit/tie. “Got any donuts in there to spare for a couple of hungry dudes?” More of them were leaving the makeshift drum circle that had formed on the sidewalk and approaching me. I should have remembered the golden rule that we all learned from Jurassic park, but instead I responded to the man…

“I’m sorry man, these are for the office. Not even my money.” Completely ignoring the raptors coming in from the sides.  He looked at me like a hungry lioness looks at an injured zebra (Kids close your eyes.) As I looked at him I began to hear the pitter-patter of little drum sticks, rolling upon my boxes of deliciousness. The members of the drum circle had grown into a procession around ‘Little Wall Street’ as I was getting stuck at a crosswalk.

Soon I was being heckled by no less than five of them! “Come on man, they aren’t going to notice if one box falls off of the truck are they?”

“Come on man, I’m just an intern!” Somehow this didn’t elicit much sympathy from them…

“An intern in a suit like that? Highly doubt it man. You probably the CEO of that place, and just ain’t saying anything. Come on, give us some of your donuts!” The drumming on the donut boxes grew louder. To me it sounded  like the booming drums of war. I was terrified and it appeared as though the red hand would never transform into the little white walk man ever again. I was doomed to stay at this crosswalk forever, or at least until I had given away my donuts.

After what felt like an eternity, the light changed and I was allowed by the gods of public works to continue along my journey. As soon as I stepped into the street I was met by a host of curse words from the drum group, but I had stepped out of their area and so they chose not to follow. Unfortunately, they recognize me now if I go to get coffee in my suit…

The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful, until I came to the greatest challenge of them all. For context, the five donut boxes obscured everything but my peripheral vision, and took both hands to carry. I reached the door to my office. At the time I was working at a fairly secured building, and it required a keycard to get in… Which of course was in my back pocket, in the farthest possible position from where my hands were.

I’m sure it looked quite strange to everyone else, but I knew that if I got my back pocket close enough to the sensor it would let me in. To the outside world I’m sure it appeared as though I was scratching my butt on the side of a building…

Long story short, I got in the building, and didn’t have an embarrassing fall while attempting to open the door with my foot. Everyone got donuts, and no one was hurt, and I learned the very important lesson, that if you are buying more than two boxes of donuts, bring a friend…