Alright, alright, I know what you’re thinking:
“What on earth is Spider-Man doing in Vancouver, British Columbia?”
And you know what, that’s a pretty reasonable question to be asking. Surely I should be swinging around the streets of Manhattan catching bad guys, stopping runaway trains, and helping cats out of trees right? Well, it’s a little bit of a weird story…
A few days ago, I caught some tough dudes in ski masks hijacking an armoured truck right in the middle of Fifth Avenue. Nothing too crazy; it happens every other week. A few well placed webs and the thugs are dangling from the lampposts with the truck parked right below them. I figured I might as well take a peak and see what these guys were trying to snatch, so I popped open the back of the truck and it was NOT what I expected. Half of the interior was taken up by a glass box with a whole miniature ecosystem built inside it, and in the middle, laying on the artificial grass was a raccoon. I snooped around the rest of the truck, trying to find any hints as to what a couple of street thugs were doing trying to steal a terrarium on wheels, but it turned up empty. The only hint was a label on the enclosure that read “Burnaby Mountain Park.”
I did some digging but I couldn’t find any information on the raccoon or the truck, and when the NYPD interrogated the hijackers, they said they got the job from some anonymous businessman and didn’t know anything else. Heck, I even took the little guy, who I decided to start calling Reggie, over to the Baxter building and let my friend Reed run some tests but he couldn’t find anything unusual either.
By this point I had gotten pretty fond of Reggie, but I could tell that he didn’t feel at home in my apartment, so I figured the best thing I could do was to get him home. Now, I didn’t know this but APPARENTLY no mail couriers want to transport a live raccoon, and all of my so called friends with their secret superhero jets were “too busy” to help me get Reggie home so my only option was to throw him in a baby carrier and and take him home myself. FYI, New York to Vancouver? NOT a short trip. Reggie and I hitched a few rides on trucks, trains, and even a nice guy with a Winnebago in Montana.
The point is, it took us three and a half days but eventually we made it, and I gotta say, it’s pretty nice here! We got into the city around seven in the morning so I decided to explore with Reggie and take a few selfies for my ahem friend Peter Parker over at the Daily Bugle. We got some good web swinging in, but I will say that metro Vancouver is definitely no Manhattan, and I ran out of tall enough buildings to swing from pretty quickly. Reggie and I got a few odd looks on the SkyTrain but after a LONG journey, we made it to Burnaby Mountain.
As soon as we got on to a trail, Reggie started getting all excited so I let him out of the baby carrier and he instantly started scampering around. Aw man, I wish I had taken a video, he looked so happy! I walked around with him a little more before I got a message that a certain school’s secret jet happened to be passing by and that they’d be willing to give me a ride home, so Reggie and I said our goodbyes (or at least I did, he kinda started rummaging in a garbage bin) and I got ready to leave.
So yeah, long story short, I travelled 2,500 miles just to drop off a raccoon. Was it worth it? Three long nights riding on the tops of cargo trains and semi trucks? Absolutely. I got to see Vancouver, hang out with my friend Reggie, and Scott even let me fly the Blackbird on the way home (well, for 30 seconds before I told him that I didn’t even have my driver’s license)! So at the end of the day, I’d say it was a solid 7.5 out of 10 trip.
And don’t worry Reggie, I’ll come back to visit!
-Your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man
