Like Band Camp - Only Not So Much

I call him Freddy. I met him yesterday in the parking lot behind Stone Cup. After the afternoon ritual of drinking $2 espresso, reading Dostoevsky, and tooling around on the interweb, I went back to my car and there he was dangling from my driver-side mirror. As you may or may not have guessed, Freddy’s a spider; no bigger than the size of the nail on my pinky toe. The words “bad ass son of a bitch” don’t even begin to describe his tenacity.

The first time I saw him, I didn’t think much of him. He was merely a blip on my consciousness. “There’s a spider on your driver’s side mirror, dude,” and that’s it. You can imagine I was surprised as hell when I got back to my apartment and he was still there. I guess he had something to prove. But again, I underestimated Freddy. I figured he’d be gone off to do what spiders do the next time I got in the car.

I was wrong.

As I was driving along at a zippy 45mph across Veteran’s Bridge on my way back to the apartment, not 10 minutes ago, I saw something flying around my window. I thought it was just a piece of junk, or dried bird shit, or something that would soon be behind me…but no, it was Freddy. He was dancing around on a line of silk, flapping in the breeze, like he was having the time of his fucking life. I shit you not, he waved at me as if to say, “You can’t get rid of me that easy, motherfucker!”

Of course we became friends. And like all good friends, I’ve got his back and he’s got mine. I brought him into the house so he wouldn’t have to deal with all the dumbass Guptas, er….garden spiders, out there. We’ve got bugs a’plenty in our apartment anyway that are just begging for Freddy to snack on their innards.

So Jesse, sleep well. We’ve got the teensy, weensy, widdle spider FROM HELL on our side. Should you wake one morning and see the words “Fuck You” in a spider’s web, that ain’t no bitch named Charlotte, it’s my boy Freddy and he’s delivering a message for me. He’s such a mensch. He’s one kickass spider, and you shouldn’t squish him – not just because I’ll kick your supid, arachnid-hating, ass, but because I want you guys to be friends. I think it’s important you do.

After all, you share a room now.