Generally timid and rarely bites

Recent events have led me to determine that — although we have lived in our home for only approximately two months — we must move the hell out of here. Preferably into a model home made by Tupperware, into which no creepy, crawly or otherwise scary-ass creatures can find their way.

Two nights ago, in a scene that seemed taken from a page right out of the King Kong bestiary, a spider that appeared roughly as large as the Yobo’s head skittered across the wall of the bathroom as he was washing his hands, causing him to exclaim loudly, “OHMYGOD!”

Thus causing me to freak out and my imagination to run wild in the seconds that it took me to reach the hallway by the bathroom door. Was he being carried off by a mob of angry cockroaches? Had he suddenly located some kind of cancerous polyp on his person? Did he accidentally pull the medicine cabinet off the wall to expose a treasure trove of gold bullion stashed years ago by a bank robber on the run? What? What?

“WHAT? WHAT?” I called out.

“You DON’T even want to know!” Yobo warned, from behind the half-closed bathroom door, seeming to eliminate at least the potential for the gold bullion stash. Rolling up a newspaper that had conveniently been left by the sink, he eyed the wall with a disbelieving gaze.

“What is it?! A big, scary cockroach?” I guessed.

“You DON’T want to know,” Yobo assured me again.

But as he prepared to battle the mysterious entity behind the door, I caught a glimpse of a shadow, then part of a brown, spindly-legged body. And I could tell without him even saying so, that it was a massive, hideous, prehistoric arachnibeast, roughly the size of the Yobo’s torso, that had somehow emerged from the bathtub drain, the toilet, or some abyss-like crevice in the wall. No doubt, it had meant to kill us in our sleep, draining us of our life forces, and then mount our heads on the craggy wall of its subterranean cavern.

It put up a valiant fight, but in the end, the monstrosity was no match for the 3-week-old front section of the Sunday Honolulu Advertiser. I knew that I had squirreled away all the unread newspapers for a good reason.

After the excitement was over and the spidersaurus roughly the size of my first car had been dispatched, Yobo poured us each a generous glass of red wine to settle our nerves.

The following day, after calling upon his expert research skills, and also consulting with some lifelong islanders at his workplace, Yobo at last reported that the monster in question was a cane spider.

At first I refused to click the link that he sent me, believing that by reading about the deadly mutant killer, I’d be in some way summoning its spirit, causing it to rise from the dead to haunt us and inflict its vengeance, this time as an immortal, all-powerful ghost spider-demon. Curiosity got the better of me.

I noted that the Web page approximated a size of only 3 to 4 inches in width, comparing the cane spider’s size with that of a tuna can. But the Yobo Adobo and I know the real truth: that this colossal, flesh-eating horror is actually roughly the size of Texas, and will stop at nothing to stand victoriously over its lifeless, bloodstained victims.