The Return of Shelob

One day recently Natalie and I were returning home from a long day in the real world of work and toil when the real adventure of our lives began (Read on at your own risk-- it gets pretty graphic). We walked up the steps into our stairwell when Natalie suddenly stopped. I was completely oblivious to everything around me (except Natalie, as always) and would have walked right into the trap if Natalie had not stopped. On the wall near our door was the biggest spider we had ever seen! We recognized it instantly from the blockbuster movie "The Return of the King" as the one and only Shelob, fully healed after her battle with Samwise Gamgee.












Can you see the resemblance?


It was pretty nasty. We stayed as far away from it as possible while we snuck into our apartment. Fortunately, it didn't pounce on us yet. Natalie armed me with the bug poison sprayer of death and then sent me out to do battle with the dreaded arachnoid (she followed me out with the camera to document our victory, finishing what Samwise the Brave failed to do).

None of us wanted to get particularly close to the monster, so we stood aways away and I doused the creature with poison for a good couple of minutes.

Apparently Shelob didn't think too highly of our actions, as she started to try to outmaneuver the stream of death that was soaking her by the second. Fortunately my aim was steady and true and so she couldn't shake me. However, after a couple of minutes we got tired of using the spray, and so I tossed it aside, grabbed a broomstick, and prepared to enter the arena of death and engage the spider mono y mono. Okay, I still had a broom, but she had 8 legs! And fangs! And that poison thingy! Luckily for me, I struck first.
This knocked the Terror down onto the mat right infront of our neighbors' door. Knowing that there were children inside, I didn't back down from the evil that was only a couple feet away from me. I took a big wind up with the broom and brought it down right on top of the merciless monster's head (and body and legs and poison thingy...). Apparently if only Sam had been standing above Shelob with a broom, he could have defeated her pretty easily in the movie. But that would have made a pretty lame scene. Anyway, thankfully that deft stroke finished off the creature, as she rolled over onto her back, curled her legs up, and gave up the ghost.

My death blow to Shelob was so mighty that our neighbor even came out to see the brave hero who finished her off. Well, on second thought, he was probably coming out to investigate what the big WHACK! was right outside his door. Regardless, we showed him the remains of the spider and we all marveled at the presence of such a monster in our stairwell. As victorious heroes often do, we discarded her carcass in the grass for the wild dogs and fowls of the air to feast upon. Wymount will sleep safely tonight thanks to the heroic efforts of two seemingly-ordinary residents.