Mutant Spider Attack

When I first moved to Taiwan I lived in a dorm somewhat on the fringes of the city. I initially chose the dorm because, well how was I going to look for an apartment from Michigan? and because they'd pick me up at the airport. I moved out after about a month I think.

 You can see why I moved out.

However while I was there I was attacked one day by a mutant spider! We have spiders in Michigan but nothing like this. Mostly we have Daddy Long Legs which I don't think are actually spiders...they're creepy insects with itty bitty bodies and super long spindly legs. We also have Wolf Spiders which are freaking scary. They range from quarter to silver dollar in size, are fat and hairy, and JUMP. They're super hard to kill because they JUMP. This mutant spider was not like either of these.

I saw it first on the wall of my dorm. It was not a small spider and I think the largest one I've ever seen. And it was black and fat and hairy and scary. I briefly considered throwing a shoe at it but vetoed that plan as I'm not a good thrower and was afraid of pissing it off. So I ran.

I looked back at the creature once before slamming the door and noticed that it had, unbelievably, grown even larger!

I want first to the front desk and tried to explain that there was a mutant spider in my room and someone needed to call Taiwan's SWAT team to deal with it. Unfortunately at that time I knew neither the Mandarin words for 'spider' nor 'mutant' (蜘蛛 and突變體 btw) so the front desk guy wasn't a lot of help. He did give me some bug spray but I was sure nothing short of napalm would stop this monster. So I rounded up some of the people I knew and a few more came to my aid out of curiosity.


I'm sure the big white girl shrilling about a mutant spider was entertaining.

However once other people say the creature, which by now had grown to be larger than my desk, they were also convinced that it needed to die. Armed with the bug spray, some shoes, possibly a broom, several of the onlookers attacked the beast.

It was surprisingly fast for a creature so large. Surely a genetically mutant freak should have a flaw? If the continuously growing spider beast had one, slowness was not it. Eventually though, the brave offensive attack was successful and the creature was vanquished.

And the villagers celebrated.

I danced around crowing that we had killed the monster while everyone looked at me sceptically wondering what was with this 'we'? While they went in to attack I cowered in the hall. Well not cowered specifically...more like provided moral support from a safe distance so as not to interfere with their tactical maneuvers.

The scary spider was about the last straw for me and I started to look for an apartment shortly there after. Granted the place I moved into often had dead gecos in the bathroom, formerly had a rat problem, had no heat, and had demons...but it did NOT have mutant spiders.