Ya know… back in my day… “Black Death” was a hyperbolic way of making excuses.
Avoid a second date. Play hookey. Avoid a second date playing with a hooker (she should have said she was “in transition” the first time). All around, it was a nice way to say “I’m not really ill with anything – much less an ancient plague – but the idea of going out with you makes me feel like I might be.”
But the Chinese ain’t faking.
Apparently, Black Death’s a thing again now and a whole buncha people in China’ve been exposed to it, meaning they’ve gotta be quarantined. A single dude contracted the plague (so strange to use that term f’real) from coming into contact with a dead marmot.
Wait – what’s a marmot?
”Please… no pictures. The killer wasn’t my kin…”
Marmots are just big squirrels that look like groundhogs – mostly because groundhogs are a type of marmot we see here in NorAm (does that work? For “north America”? People do that colloquially?). And they’re generally pretty harmless – it’s just that this one was dead and filled with bacterial witchcraft and voodoo and probably the demon Legion.
But wait… didn’t something else horrible happen in China recently?
Like… this…?
What? Oh… it’s just a flying bug they discovered… WITH FANGS.
Are we being serious here?! I think this thing starred in Silence of the Lambs. This motherchucker looks like what would happen if my sister’s well-meaning-but-horribly-violent pitt bull were suddenly gifted a set of wings. Can we talk about those jaws? I just want to know WHO is responsible for this. Scepter wielding Zeus? Karma-god? Somebody who was doing prehistoric necromancy in the museum’s retro-insect exhibit?
After a tad more research, I learned that these badboys do at least kill spiders.
Then I learned they kill this one spider that does art in its spare time (really he just sounds like a vain arsehole, building morbid portraits of himself with his dead conquests and leaf litter). Let’s find a pictu-
Jesus Christ! This thing exists? And makes murals?
Nietzsche was right. God is dead.
It’s actually meant to be a decoy (which doesn’t make me feel any better). But this must be version point Peter Parker symbol, ‘cause he’s short a leg or two. #GoToHellSpiderYoureDrunk
So… alright… they kill spiders. That’s a good mission in life, I suppose. Mayhaps I was rash – and this levitating terror deserves its place in the univers-… WAIT. 8 inch wingspan?! I could wear this thing as a mask and do a crime and get away with it. But if I did do a Chinese crime and my two punishment options were either bubonic plague or this thing coming within a mile radius of me, I’d choose the slow rotting death every time.
Come on, China. Plague? Flying jaws? Dahmer spider? That’s too many things.
This is where we draw the line.
You know how this has to end, right?
With fumigator Godzilla.
Obviously.