Critters: Before I let allow the cats to come in, first I do a visual inspection followed by a patting down to make sure they aren't trying to smuggle live or dead chipmunks across the doorstep.
Critters: There is a ground hog that trundles back and forth across our back yard. Tom stares longingly out the back door, wishing he could take a shot at him. But since I am adamant that he not have a gun, he can only holler "GROUNDHOG" out the door in a vain attempt to scare Mr. Groundhog away.
Creepy crawly things:
Tuesday evening, following a day of unseasonably hot and humid weather, we had a particularly heavy thunder storm. After the storm, the cats wanted to go out. I decided to leave the kitchen door open so that they could come and go at their leisure. When I went back into the kitchen to start dinner, I was stopped dead in my tracks, for there on the floor,to my great consternation and utter revulsion, was 4 inches of plump, wriggling ugliness. Because of the plumpness of the creature I was fairly confident that it was not a snake. But I needed to be sure.
"Right then" I said. Girding up my loins, I poked at it with a hesitant finger. It immediately contorted into a protective C-shape thus confirming my suspicions that it was not a snake. But it still needed to be identified and disposed of!
Tom was in the living watching the ball game. I squawked and begged and pleaded for him to come and look at this thing before it crawled away. But to no avail. He wouldn't move from his prone position on the couch to see what all the commotion was about.
"Fine" I huffed. "If Mohammed won't come to the mountain......."
For those of you who know of my legendary battles with creepy crawly things, you can guess what I did next.
That's right!
I reached for my trusty kitchen tongs, snatched up the thing and being careful not to squeeze too hard carried the it into the living room.
"WHAT IS THIS?" I screeched, thrusting creepy crawly laden tongs into Tom's face .
After giving it a cursory glance he said, with great disinterest and more than a hint of irritation in his voice, "It's a centipede, Jen". Having answered my burning question, he turned dismissively back to the Mets game and left me with standing there foolishly holding a centipede in a pair of kitchen tongs.
Since it was only a centipede, I charitably decided that it could live another day, flung it into the yard, washed the tongs and started dinner.
I thought I handled that well, all things considered.
Jen Vanquisher of All Things Creepy Crawly signing off
4 comments:
I think, I could be wrong, but I think centipedes are poisonous. I'm just saying.
Oh and by the way, it the 17year cicada emergence in our yard. [shudder]
At least your cats are doing their job. My hide from anything that moves. They are far too domesticated. Pretty soon they will be washing the dishes and making pancakes.
what the hell? where do you live, for crying out loud?
how big are centipedes? i am imagining those nasty, prehistoric looking earwigs.
my cat, ebu, likes to bring me locusts.
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