There Goes the Neighborhood

The door hadn't quite shut when my airport pick-up team informed me that the Pokie house had acquired somewhere in the neighborhood of several to several hundred new boarders. It seemed as though "the gully" was no longer good enough for a traveling band of hobo spiders and so they had moved inside.

"What's a hobo spider?" I asked. I pictured in my head little spiders carrying handkerchief packs slung over the end of a stick resting on their backs. Probably they came to town "ridin' the rails", telling stories of days past over trash can fires while roasting little mini-hot dogs.

David assured me that this picture was wholey accurate and that I should beware - sometimes hobo spiders have been known to get rowdy and steal laundry from the backyard.

Susan wasn't sure about the fires, laundry and such, however. But what she did know was that, according to wikipedia, their move indoors was due to the fact that they preferred to "keep company" with each other in the comfort of a climate controlled home.

That left all of us feeling a little violated and somewhat cheapened. It's one thing to have friendly trash fire campfires outside but another altogether to have them turn frat party inside. At about that point Susan's research also uncovered the fact that apparently their bites can putrefy one's flesh.

So we went to Lowes in search of various and sundry tools to "encourage" them to take up residence elsewhere. Long story short, we purchased the best when the Lowes man (who had a very unnerving lazy eye, by the way) told us that one night he was unloading boxes at Wal-Mart when he attempted to smash a hobo spider and the spider actually turned on him and aggressively paced him down the aisle. He also told us to get a long-lasting bug spray since hobo spiders are known to "hold their breath".

Basically, it turns out we were dealing with aggressive, smart, overly-sexualized, neighborhood hoodlum-type insects.

Only after napalming the entire house did we later discover that doing so kills off the good bugs as well as the bad bugs, but that some really bad bugs (like rabble-rousing hobo spiders) can survive. Without good bugs to kill the bad bugs, then the bag bugs who apparently have superbug genetics survive and thrive without check.

So should my family wake up one morning to find that a brick with a "next time, you're getting the gas" note tied to it thrown through the window - I think they need look no further than the bionic hobo spiders drinking moonshine and shackin' up downstairs...