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Tarantulas ruin Brentwood woman's road trip in new PT Cruiser
Wednesday, June 27, 2001 By Al Lowe, Tri-State Sports & News Service
Chris Goughler of Brentwood can laugh about it now, but encountering a tarantula in her new car while driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike proved to be one of the most horrifying experiences of her life.
The Moon postal employee spotted the spider as she attempted to pass a tractor-trailer truck while on a business trip.
The dark brown, hairy visitor with yellow stripes on its legs came out of the visor of her brand new PT Cruiser and crawled a quarter of the way down her windshield.
"People have told me they would have freaked out and wrecked the car if it had been them," Goughler said.
"It was the size of a half-dollar and would fit into the palm of your hand. We learned later from the zoo [that] spiders aren't hairy. But tarantulas are."
Her daughter, Jessica, a Brentwood 10th-grader, was later consulted on a cell phone and learned through the Internet it was a Mexican spider.
Goughler tried to scoop it up with a newspaper so she could throw it from the car, but it was too fast for her. She pulled over to the side of the road, got her courage together and decided to continue the trip.
Then she saw a second one, even larger than the first, exit the visor. It was also too quick and scrambled back under the visor.
Goughler somehow managed to get the car to a post office parking lot in Philadelphia and never used it again.
In some ways, she found her dealings with Philadelphia officials, Chrysler Corp. and Pleasant Hills Chrysler, where she bought the car, scarier than the two spiders.
Goughler's husband, Thomas, learned from the car dealership the Cruiser was made in Mexico. She called the zoo, animal control, county health and federal agriculture departments but got little help.
The zoo referred her to Steve Kanya, who ran an exterminating/learning center operation. "He was very nice at first" but was later unresponsive as to what happened to the tarantulas, she said.
The car was eventually taken by the dealership back to the lot, she said.
"All I did was look out for the safety of my customers," lot manager Larry Antonucci said. "The car was towed back, and I'm out of the loop now. What happens next is between them and Chrysler."
Chrysler spokesperson Marc Henretta referred to the car as "the alleged PT Cruiser with spiders in it. ... We had an exterminator inspect it and found no evidence of rodents."
He said the Goughlers turned down the offer of another PT Cruiser. "I don't know what else a manufacturer can do. We bent over backward to make it right."
Chris Goughler said Chrysler insisted she pay $5,000 owed on the car she traded in, which they had already sold. She said she and her husband have agreed to do it. "We want to get out of the deal."
But she admitted she was amused when a co-worker drew a cartoon of a family of tarantulas driving a PT Cruiser. A baby one asks, "Are we there yet?"
"I laughed at it. But I want everyone to know what really happened."
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