Last week I witnessed one of the most shocking events ever while working as a merchandiser in a local supermarket here in Queens, NY. This event was more startling and frightening to me than an accident a couple of years ago when working in a different supermarket and someone driving hit the gas pedal instead of the brake pedal of her car and plowed through the front window into the self service express lane machine area. Fortunately nobody was seriously injured back then.

But last week's incident was just unimaginable like a scene out of a horror movie . I was working in the cookie aisle. The ice cream aisle is my favorite if you're interested. Oh.You're not..well, getting on with my story, I was about 3 aisles away from the produce area which is close to one of the store entrances as well as the back room where the deliveries come in. While moving some boxes of Oreos, I thought I heard someone screaming....then I heard a lot of screams from customers and heard people running. Alarms and buzzers went off with a voice on the public address system saying to get out of the store NOW. Flashing lights and loud screeching noises plus that person yelling "Attention everyone,leave the store immediately".
Bomb threat called in? A fire? What the hell can this be I thought to myself. I've been in the stores before during tests with similar alarms and lights flickering. You should have seen the shoppers pushing and shoving and running like a pack of crazed stampeding buffalo..even senior citizens with canes making like they were Jessie Owns or Odell Beckham Jr. Other folk were just making like a banana and splitting.

Well, it seems several boxes of bananas...that's right...bananas that were sitting on the floor and on tables were teeming with tarantulas. !!!! Holy Arachnophobia. !!! Dozens of these huge arachnids were crawling all over the floor and produce tables onto fruits and vegetables in the entire produce area in just a few seconds. This was a mass exodus the likes I had never seen with customers running past me...hopefully none slipping on a banana peel on their charge to one of the store exits. I grabbed my work supplies, my two boxes of Mallomars I had paid for with the receipt still in the bag and hightailed it to the exit furthest away from the produce area before you could say Little Miss Muffet,

While customers and staff huddled outside with people saying there might have been hundreds of tarantulas (which I doubted), how the hell and when did those tarantulas get into those boxes puzzled me. The police and fire department showed up within minutes .Some guys dressed like "Ghostbusters" from a nearby exterminator also showed up and entered the store with some of the city's finest and bravest. More fire engines showed up along with some crazed customer carrying a butterfly net and even an animal rights activist group. What the hell are they here for I wondered...save the spiders?

Finally the news I had been waiting for was heard. The tarantulas had been contained according to what the police were saying . The tarantulas had NOT reached the cookie aisle. Oh what a relief. !!!! The store was closed for a few days while inspectors and exterminators made sure there were no tarantulas anywhere in the store . When normal business resumed a few days later, I made sure I steered clear of the Banana Nut Cheerios in the cereal aisle.