ROCHESTER, N.Y. (WROC) — The drummer for rock band Joywave was shocked Monday to find several live scorpions inside a package that had been delivered to him.
“At first, I thought it was like a tick or something. I mean, they were really small,” said Paul Brenner, drummer for the nationally known band based in Rochester, New York.
The package sat unopened on Brenner’s floor all weekend. When he got home Monday and opened it, he came face to face with about eight little scorpions and one big one.
“That’s when I realized, ‘No, that’s a scorpion,'” Brenner said. “That’s when my shirt left my hands and went into the box.”
Brenner said he’d ordered a T-shirt and some shoes from an internet seller in Hawaii. When he found the creatures, he called 311, and Rochester police responded.
“The cops seemed to love it,” Brenner said. “More kept showing up, they had their phones out, some of them were saying, ‘I’ve never even seen a scorpion.'”
Rochester police told WROC that the scorpions did not appear to have been intentionally sent. They said there might have been a scorpion that entered the packaging before it was shipped or was inside the item that was shipped.
“That’s almost the scariest part,” Brenner said. “Because, you know, I have a cat, and my roommate was home all weekend. And just knowing that there were live scorpions feet from my sleeping cat, you know, and I wasn’t there. That’s just creepy. ‘Tis the season, I suppose.”
He added: “I was tricked, not treated today.”
Officials said there are no scorpions in the area that pose any risk to residents.