MISSING TARANTULA HOAX SCURRIES INTO PARK SLOPE’S HEART

Photo credit: LASERPILOT VIA REDDIT

FIPS readers are no suckers, but the rest of the Internet was flipping the fuck out on Friday over the escape of a “mostly harmless” lil ol’ Tarantula in Park Slope. Saturday morning, the NY Times confirmed my suspicion that we were being trolled by a lamppost.

By late Friday afternoon, a phone call to the number listed on the sign yielded the apparent truth: It was all a joke that had gotten out of hand.

“I always see those signs for missing dogs and cats taped up on posts; I thought, ‘What’s the most absurd poster I could come up with?’ ” the man who answered the phone said. “I thought it was so beyond ridiculous that no one would take it seriously. I was wrong.”

The man, who refused to provide his name, said he lived in the neighborhood and worked as a, er, web and graphic designer.

“I never expected it to blow up,” he said. “Then I was in the train station, looking at my Twitter feed and saw this tweet from ABC about a tarantula. I thought, ‘Oh, man.’ ”

The man said he had never owned a tarantula, or any pet for that matter. “I actually didn’t know how to spell tarantula,” he said. “I had to Google that.” 

I’ll admit that upon seeing the news, I checked under my office desk (in Midtown West) just to be sure the beast hadn’t hitched a ride in my purse. But dread immediately gave way to my neutral state of cynical hostility. A quick Google image search brought up the exact picture used on the flyer via the website for Punta Venado Bike Park in Riviera Maya, Mexico. Of course it was possible that the owner didn’t have an actual photo of his pet Tarantula. Possible, but not fucking likely. You don’t go out and buy a giant fucking Fur Spider, name it “Penelope” and hook it up with a boyfriend without snapping an actual picture or two. The kind of person who has a “Penelope” has this type of picture as a screensaver:

Photo credit: Ross PerryStill, credit should be given where credit is due. The flyer was brilliant in its simplicity and hilariously evil. What is scarier than a Tarantula on the loose? A pregnant Park Slope Tarantula! *Insert joke here about entitled spider trying to sneak spider babies into school zone*. Pregnant and nocturnal. It all but said, “She will likely be cruising your street tonight, looking for a NICE WARM EAR IN WHICH TO LAY HER EGGS. Nighty night! Shhhhhhhh, go to sleep now.”

What’s truly scary is that New Yorkers could be so gullible. We aren’t usually known for being quick to fall for anything, even the truth. New Yorkers hear this on the subway regularly, “Excuse me ladies and gentlemen… I am sorry for bothering you on your commute this morning… I hate to be a nuisance but I need your help today because….” and there are zero reasons that we will actually believe to be true. Not one. The poor bastard could literally have half of his face missing, like Chicken Man from Breaking Bad, and we’d think, “faker.”

By Friday afternoon, other smartasses were already getting in on the “missing scary pet” action. This flyer was spotted outside Prospect Park:

Shockingly, a call to the number listed confirmed that this flyer was also a hoax. The listed phone number belongs to Sean Casey Animal Rescue in Windsor Terrace, who didn’t seem amused and denied having had any involvement with the prank. Way to go, yucksters. Let’s not go pissing off the one guy who can help us when there’s a Cerberus on the loose.