Things got weird early — right around dawn. Part of my morning routine is washing and refilling the dogs’ water bowls while my coffee brews. One bowl is on the front porch, and the other is in the laundry room off the kitchen. When I went to retrieve the laundry room bowl, I saw that there was a lizard floating in it.
It’s not usual to see lizards in the house, and as far as I’m concerned, they are welcome guests since they eat bugs. But this one, about four or five inches long, was floating in the half-filled metal water bowl, which was unusual. It wasn’t moving, and I wondered if it was alive. I firmly tapped the side of the bowl with my toe to test it, and the poor little lizard swirled around lifelessly.
What a pity, I thought. I wondered what to do with it and figured I’d open the front door and throw the contents of the bowl, including the deceased lizard, into the bushes. But when I picked the bowl up to do so, the lizard suddenly revived and started thrashing around frantically.
I involuntarily jumped and let out a yelp, sloshing some of the water on my boobs. Luckily for us both, the lizard wasn’t in the water I deposited onto the front on my jammies. I quickly set the bowl down on the floor again while the lizard continued its frenzied but futile efforts to climb out. I shut the door against Badger, who’d come to investigate my screech.
I looked around the laundry room, trying to quickly formulate a plan. There was a small cardboard box I’d broken down for recycling within reach, so I grabbed it, tore a piece off and fashioned it into a ramp the lizard could use to climb out of the bowl. It worked!
The lizard exited the water, but then it laid down on the makeshift ramp instead of running away as they normally do when a unimaginably tall creature looms nearby (i.e., a human):
The poor thing was probably exhausted and pruney — who knows how long it had struggled to escape the bowl before I found it? But I had to get it to move along because I needed to go change into some dry clothes, and Badger would probably eat it if I left it where it was and opened the door.
So, I leaned over and carefully picked up the ramp, thinking I’d release the lizard into a hanging basket on the side porch so it could recover in peace. But as I started to stand, the lizard leapt onto my arm, causing me to startle, stumble backwards and fall on my ass while banging my head on the dryer door.
The lizard ran under the washer, where it is hopefully fine and reflecting on the perils of indoor living.
I’m not afraid of lizards, goddamn it! As I child, I used to catch them and temporarily keep them as pets. But when a lizard, frog or whatever jumps on me unexpectedly, I have stupid involuntary reactions. I guess that makes me as ill-suited to the wild as the lizard is to the house. The end.
Open thread.
Alison Rose
Listen. I know lizards are nothing to be afraid of, and in fact they are quite cute. But if one leapt onto my damn body, I would scream loud enough to wake the dead in China.
Thank you for this anecdote, Betty. I needed the giggle.
Baud
How would you like it if some giant plucked you out of a pool?
Glad you weren’t hurt.
Alison Rose
@Baud: Fee, fi, fo, fim, I smell a Floridian going for a swim
Jharp
I used to think lizards were about the coolest. Loved catching them and checking them out.
Then I got old and became a germophobe and wouldn’t even think of touching one.
Ditto snakes.
bbleh
So I was just hanging out in this pool I found, nice and relaxed, just floating and kinda zoning out, and suddenly outta nowhere comes one of those big monkey-things and starts banging on the pool. I figured maybe if I ignored it then it would go away, but no, it picks up the pool and starts sloshing it around everywhere! So I figured I’d better get out — dunno what it was gonna do with the pool, it was emptying the water all over the place — but then it puts the pool down again — wtf — and sticks a ramp in. Great, climb up, dry off, everything cool, right? But no, then it picks up the ramp. I dunno what it was thinking, maybe wanted to eat me or something, but I figured better get out while the getting’s good. So I ran up its arm, and it fell down — seriously crazy, right? — and I got into a cave under some big thing that doesn’t ever seem to move (unlike that crazy monkey-thing). What a day, jeez …
sab
Been there, done that. Those little guys are one of the things I miss most about my childhood in Florida, although I would jump and shriek if one jumped on me. You should hear me when I am startled by a mouse, and I am not the least bit afraid of them.
We called them chameleons, but reptile book says they are anoles. Is that right?
twbrandt (formerly tom)
Yet another reason not to live in Florida.
Jharp
Not me but my good buddy had a pet anole.
He decided it’d be a good idea to put a praying mantis in his pet lizard’s environ.
Big bug, big meal I guess.
Only to return to his pet anole having a slashed throat and dead.
oatler
I’m not afraid of lizards, goddamn it!
The lawyer in “Jurassic Park”
Hitchhiker
All before coffee!
This is why I never, ever do anything before coffee.
When my kids were small I used to make it the night before and keep it in the world’s best thermos next to my bed. Now I depend on a coffeepot with a timer, and I just don’t get up until I can smell it.
Poor lizard had no idea how his day was gonna start.
Dangerman
Lizards may help protect against Lyme disease.
satby
@bbleh: Well done!
Jess
@sab: yes, anole. I used to have them as a kid.
I would have just scooped it up and put it outside. That’s what I do with spiders (and mice) that belong in the garden. The cellar spiders are welcome to stay.
The Moar You Know
This is like one of those John Cole stories minus the shattered limbs or car landing in a field conclusions.
Jess
@Jharp: Praying Mantises don’t fuck around.
satby
@Jharp: Praying mantis eat small birds, including hummingbirds. Keep them away from bird feeders of any kind. A lizard is probably a very tasty snack to them.
edit to fix autocorrect’s inadvertently more accurate spelling.
TaMara
Okay, first of all…I get it. I’m not afraid of snakes, but the two times I’ve found a harmless, yet large, garter snake in my house, I had a complete meltdown, using all kinds of implements to remove it, when I could have just picked it up and carried it out.
Second…oh how I wish you had security cameras in your house. I’d pay to see that. We could probably support the blog for a year on the funds we’d all pay to see that.
Glad you’re unhurt and dry now.
TaMara
@Jharp: JeffreyW has some horrifying videos of hummingbirds being speared and eaten by praying mantis. Did I mention, horrifying?
mrmoshpotato
@TaMara:
LOL!
Seconded.
TaMara
Since this is an open thread, this movie looks good, but I’m a huge Matt Damon fan:
https://youtu.be/r2ZQluAdjC8
Betty Cracker
@bbleh: Bravo — it’s a much more exciting story from the lizard’s perspective!
@TaMara: I saw a video once of a roadrunner snatching a hummingbird out of the air and eating it. Impressive but horrifying.
Jharp
@satby:
I’ve become anti bird feeders in my old age.
Just too many undesirables come around. And I don’t even live in bear or deer country.
My new rule is no feeding wildlife.
Dorothy A. Winsor
Glad your story had a happy ending. For the lizard anyway. Maybe not for Badger
dearmaizie
Too bad there wasn’t a MAN nearby who would’ve said, “Why dint you just open the door and let him out?”
bbleh
@Betty Cracker: sorry, couldn’t resist. You probably DID save its life.
dearmaizie
Also, you had to endure all of that without coffee. That’s the real tragedy.
A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan)
@TaMara: Thanks for the link – the new movie looks great. Matt Damon movies are always reliable, and Ben Affleck movies are now too (starting about when he started directing), especially the ones he writes (Argo FTW). Reminds me of Ford vs. Ferrari, which I loved, despite not caring at all about race cars (and my husband had a lovely time regressing to 8th grade the first time we saw the movie).
raven
There is one climbing up the window right now.
Wapiti
@Jharp: No bird feeders here, but we have a mid-sized cotoneaster tree in the front that has a million red berries in the winter.
My guess is the berries taste like ass to birds, because they don’t eat them except when it gets down to about 20 degrees. Then we have flocks of birds feeding on the berries. (I’ve also noticed fruit flies, which suggests the berries ferment as the winter goes on.)
LarryB
dexwood
@Betty Cracker: Roadrunners are competent predators. Their population in my neighborhood has been steadily increasing in recent years. They’ve become quite used to me, often staying within three or four feet, checking me out, as I putter around the yard. They stay pretty well hidden near the bird feeders hunting sparrows. Last week, I watched one stalking a squirrel in the front yard, but the squirrel escaped. I’ve seen them back off neighborhood cats many times.
HumboldtBlue
billcinsd
Clearly John G. Cole is beginning to rub off on you Betty. Soon, there will be naked mopping and a vacation to West Virginia. You were warned
oklahomo
We use grabbers to move the water dish for the barn cats in the barn and on the back porch — even though they sit on a bristly mat, it’s pretty much even chance in the warm times to have a small copperhead underneath.
R-Jud
The Child, who loves all reptiles and amphibians, thinks your little houseguest is just the cutest thing in the world (after her pet snake).
I’m just glad this story didn’t involve the other, toothier lizards who live near you.
Mr. Bemused Senior
I ❤ BJ
WereBear
Reminds me of the times I scoop an uncooperative spider out of the tub before a shower.
No good deed goes unpunished.
CaseyL
@bbleh: Oh, that was excellent. And probably accurate :)
I have said the only thing I miss about living in South Florida is the thunderstorms.
So I need to take that back a little: I also miss some of the wildlife*: the lizards, the pelicans, and those funny little spiders that look like teeny tiny crabs.
And, yes, the lizard Betty rescued is an “anole.” They change colors like chameleons, and so got the nickname, but real chameleons are entirely different critters.
I used to love watching them. I’d be walking down the street, and a male would challenge me for custody of the sidewalk: he’d raise his front end to its tallest extent – maybe two, two and a half inches – unfurl his red dewlap, and jerk his head repeatedly at me.
I thought that was the cutest example of testosterone poisoning ever: a creature less than 1/1000th my size telling me to get off his
lawnsidewalk. (Though I did always respectfully step aside from them, so maybe they won after all).*Maybe I should say “most of” the wildlife, or maybe “all of the wildlife EXCEPT THE COCKROACHES WHO ARE EVIL EVIL EVIL.”
J R in WV
Years ago Wife and I were reading in bed on a dusky evening when I noticed a cat by the bed staring HARD at the floor underneath the chair on my side of the bed.
So I looked, and there was a small grass snake coiled down under the chair… I got a pair of gloves and picked up the little guy, and dropped him into deep leaves below the back porch. Was a real cutie!
ETA: Nothing like your own morning story! My morning today was a bummer — a 6.30am appointment to have my bladder inspected after having a tumor removed last December. Now back home, resting with a puppy between Wife and me.
Jharp
@Wapiti:
that’s the way it is supposed to go.
Rachel Bakes
@TaMara: I heard at the nature center where I work that native praying mantises are ok in that regard but it’s the invasive ones that catch hummingbirds, etc.
Back in my dad’s teen years he brought a praying mantis egg inside (in a tank). His family made the paper in Ricky-dink CT town for that-along with feeding them ground beef to cut down on mantis fratricide.
Jharp
I had forgotten my best wildlife in the house story.
I lived in an 1840’s farmhouse. One part of my bathroom cabinet had a dirt floor.
Kept hearing things behind that cabinet door. I’d sneak up and suddenly open and nothing. For weeks.
Then one day heard a sound, popped it open, and was face to face with a groundhog.
Slammed the door closed so hard that I had to replace the door.
And groundhogs living under your house are extremely hard to oust. They’ve got the drop on you every single day.
RandomMonster
We lived in the wilds of the Santa Cruz Mountains for several years, and each of our three mountain kitties had a hunting specialty. The calico was the Gopher Queen, who despite her petite size (weighing in at like six pounds) would bring in rodents and paint vivid murder scenes in the bathroom. The tortie used her darkness to lurk in the bushes and take out hummingbirds (we were never thrilled with this). And the tomcat lived up to some kind of gender stereotype and would bring home only reptiles, which he didn’t kill, but would play with inside the house. He especially like skinks, which were found all over the place up there. These interesting creatures have that ability to shed their tails, so we were always finding a tailless skink and skink-less tail in some corner of the room.
J R in WV
@RandomMonster: Cals can be so strange in such various ways!
Jeffro
You interrupted his bath!! LOL
I don’t know how folks do it. I’m not too fazed by seeing all kinds of creatures out in the wild, but if I was getting lizards (or scorpions, like my cousin in Arizona) in the house, even occasionally, I’d be on pins and needles all. the. time.
We had a five-lined skink come zipping into the garage last summer when I opened the garage door, and I moved EVERYTHING (multiple kayaks, bikes, trash cans) until I could get at him with a broom and ease him back outside. No way was I going to take the slightest chance of seeing him in my kitchen later that week!
Quinerly
My new world in New Mexico includes way too much wildlife. I had to learn quickly the difference in the Beneficial Bully vs Rattlesnakes. JoJo came to me in a panic this past summer. Lead me, while barking, to his little blue baby swimming pool. Dead, bloated rat floating. Left the door open to the Ford Escape while I was loading it up to go to Durango in the Fall. A small, curious coyote was about to hop in when I got back to the car. Then there are the mice and pack rats that will eat your car’s wiring in the winter. They supposedly really go for soy based Toyota wiring. I spray my engines with peppermint oil every few days as a deterrent. Went to put on my Tony Lamas in November. Dumped out a handful of JoJo’s kibble. Miguel was here working….that’s when he announced I probably had ground squirrels in my closet. Knock on wood….it turned out to be one mouse. Caught him with peanut butter. Got a friend out here who relocates her rattlesnakes when they get in her house and has mouse traps in her Prius. Catches mice to put on her wall for the ravens. Oh, I and I have lots of lizards. And a family of bobcats.
Major Major Major Major
Oh man! I’m not sure I would have handled that much better. I don’t have anything against lizards either, but the surprise of an animal jumping on me… yeah. Might not end well for anybody unfortunately.
We are moved into Denver now! It has been quite an ordeal! It took us four tries to get the Internet turned on and we still don’t have a refrigerator (tomorrow, fingers crossed). But we’re getting there. Slowly but surely…
I wish I was writing here more but I’m just so exhausted by the end of the day, with all the unpacking, and wow home ownership is a lot of work, haha. At least it’s not zero degrees out like it (weirdly) was the first couple days we were here!
Jeffro
@Jharp: whoa!
@Jess: they do not
@satby: yup! We had a very small one (like, 2 inches long at best) hanging off of our hummingbird feeder last summer, which looked cool until we realized what was going through that little beast’s head. “Next year, my feathered friends, next year…”
We shooed him away.
oldgold
Here’s the damn problem with keeping this lizard in the house.
Soon it will be incessantly trying to sell you car insurance.
Dan B
@Wapiti: Many berries need to freeze hard to break up the cells and then blett (ferment). Before that happens the cell walls are so hard the berries are undigestible. In spring you probably get to see some drunken birds.
Quinerly
Speaking of wildlife….another Santos dog story.
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/09/santos-charged-theft-2017-dog-breeders-00082091
Raven
@J R in WV: the pecker checker huh?
NotMax
John Cole category story.
Now with bonus boobs!
:)
Quinerly
Missouri Republican Sen. Josh Hawley booted from the Armed Services Committee last month as retribution for delaying the confirmation of numerous Defense Department nominees last year, and for his role in challenging Mitch McConnell’s hold as the chamber’s top Republican, sources tell CQ Roll Call.
Orchid Moon
Betty, I love your stories! I was laughing so hard that I almost cried from your lizard escapade. Thanks for your humor. I hope you are recovered from your fall.
Quinerly
Missouri Republican Sen. Hawley booted from the Armed Services Committee last month as retribution for delaying the confirmation of numerous Defense Department nominees last year, and for his role in challenging Mitch McConnell’s hold as the chamber’s top Republican, sources tell CQ Roll Call.
Ken
“And that was how I got my superpowers.”
geg6
My terrifying creatures in the house tales all involve bats and snakes. I have several tales about each type of creature from back in my childhood and when I was still with my ex. We had at least 7 or 8 incidents with bats in the house my ex and I lived in. We also had a snake incident that began with boxes our bar stools were delivered in. The bar stools were made in Indonesia and the snake came in one of the boxes. I also had a run-in with a black snake doing laundry for the ex when we were first dating and he was living a his dump of a bachelor pad. And we had many incidents at my parents’ when I was a child. Our subdivision, which was only about 10 years old when I was a child, was built on a former fruit orchard, with many of the fruit trees left as landscaping (we had a pear tree, one neighbor a block away had apples and a few streets further, it was cherry trees). Orchards attract rodents, rodents attract snakes and that’s how you get nests of copperheads in a residential neighborhood.
I hate snakes and bats.
trnc
When my daughter was 9 or 10, a gecko jumped on arm and crawled up to her shoulder. She was pretty chill about it, and she grinned and opened her mouth as a joke. We laughed, but I said, “You’d better close your mouth,” so she did. Good timing, because the little dude jumped and hit her face right after she closed her mouth. Pretty sure we narrowly avoided a mental calamity.
Betty Cracker
We had an outdoor tiki bar at our old place that had a trellis that was thick with jasmine. Frogs would lurk in the vegetation, and my head must look like a lily pad from above or something because they jumped on my head very often and never once on anyone else.
I like frogs just fine, but something jumping on me unexpectedly scares the crap out of me, so I worried I’d accidentally hurt a frog with a startled reaction. But it happened so damned frequently that after a while, I didn’t even startle.
I’d feel a sensation like a small bag of Jello had landed softly on my head, sigh and say to the mister, “It’s another goddamn frog in my hair, can you help me untangle it?” LOL!
Jackie
We had a kitten who was about 5 months old catch a HUGE moth just after dusk and attempted to bring it in the house (back door was cracked open) when the moth tried getting free. It’s wings buzzed loud enough to tickle her mouth (like buzzing a comb.) Her eyes crossed, but instead of letting it go, she frantically back-peddled back out the door and let it go. She probably spent an hour attempting to re-catch it to no avail.
cope
Fun way to start your day, Betty, thanks. A good chuckle is a wonderful part of any day.
The greatest mishap I’ve had trying to take an outside critter back outside involved a dragon fly. It was as wide as my hand and perched inside our garage. I approached slowly and grabbed it around the middle of its body, right behind the wings. As I watched, it swiveled its head completely around 180 degrees and sank both of it black, sharp jaws into my thumb. Just as in your case, it was the unexpectedness of the action that was most unsettling and shocking. Didn’t it know I was just saving its life? Ingrate.
NotMax
Posted in wrong thread. Now where it belongs.
Dolly Parton & Jim Stafford..
:)
Quinerly
@geg6:
My second run in with my yard Bully (Bull Snake) was when I was creating my cactus garden out front. I was taking cactus cuttings from other parts of my acreage and planting in these gravel beds. I had only been here about 2 months. I was dressed appropriately with industrial grade gauntlets used by rose bush people and had my steel toe work boots on. Laid the shovel down (in the sun, right where I was working), walked not far to the porch to take a sip of hot tea. All within sight. Walked back to the shovel. Huge Bully had wrapped himself around it and was lounging on the hot metal part. I have to wonder how close he had been to me while I had been digging and planting.
I may have been born in rural NC, but at heart I am a city girl. Inner city St. Louis for so long. I will never get used to the snakes, rats, mice out here.
GrannyMC
Hard to tell from one photo, but I think that’s a gecko, not an anole.
Albatrossity
Yeah, that’s a gecko, not a lizard. Dunno what kinds of geckos are in Florida, or if any of them are native, but that’s what it is.
Martin
A few years into my first management position I’m in my office and there’s this blood curdling scream from down the hallway. One my staff is in the middle of the file room trying to compose herself, pointing at a lateral filing cabinet. The top drawer isn’t fully closed so I pull it out and there’s a good 10″ lizard sitting on top of the files just hangin’ out. No idea how he got in there. You open a file cabinet you expect files, not a lizard. Don’t blame anyone for jumping out of their skin at that surprise. I corralled him up and put him outside. He never came back to visit us.
Martin
@Quinerly: Give Mitch credit for one thing – he knows how to keep his caucus in line.
Baud
@Quinerly:
👍
ETA: should have been booted for sedition.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: i worked in the Bay Area foothills for a couple years at an office that had some water features out front. They had to install little steps in them for tiger salamanders. Never did see any, but I just thought it was so cute.
Don K
Once upon a time some friends and I were backpacking in Canyonlands National Park when we came upon two lizards running around on the rocks. One was clearly chasing the other, so we surmised it was mating season (I don’t know whether such a thing exists for lizards, but whatever), and the chaser was a horny male while the chasee was a nubile example of lizard womanhood. Suddenly the chasee ran up my bare leg (it was Memorial Day in central Utah, so it was warm), followed by the assumed-to-be male, who thereby completed his mission. I don’t recall shrieking, but I did yell and shook my leg to rid myself of them and get them to finish their fucking elsewhere. A completely unique experience and a highlight of my trip to Utah.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
Had a golden retriever growing up. She wasn’t the sharpest stick in the box but she did have all the instincts of the breed at 100%. Once watched her sneak up on a bird in the back yard, an inch at a time, on her tummy. Bird heard her I’d imagine and started to take off. Dog leaped up and snagged a wing and that was it. Now we also had a pet duck, a beautiful mallard sis won in the town yearly carnival as duckling. The dog used to retrieve the duck and take him up on the back porch, holding him until we took him out of the dogs mouth. Dog never even ruffled the ducks feathers. We gave the duck away. It seemed more reasonable.
mrmoshpotato
@Quinerly:
@Baud: Should’ve been booted into the Sun.
SteverinoCT
I lived in the Orlando area for a few years, and shared an apartment with a pair of young cats. I made a cat flap for them, and would come home to half-lizards dying on the floor. The cats would catch them and bring them in to the A/C to play and eat. I also came home once to a live pigeon sitting on my bedroom floor with a cat casually lounging against it. I picked up the bird and carried it outside, where it eventually flew off. Once while reading in my chair, a lizard appeared atop the couch– the one that got away. I couldn’t catch it, and ended up tilting up the couch and dropping a cat. I tossed them both outside and blocked the cat flap. The live mole… I caught it, but what does one do with it? I dropped it over the fence into the next development.
Quinerly
@Martin:
But not defend his wife re Trump’s racist remarks.
Frankensteinbeck
@Jess:
I had one try to eat me, once. Strange experience. I picked up a praying mantis, going “Aw, she’s so cute!” and the little fucker leaned in and started chewing on my thumb. It didn’t hurt, exactly, but she was determined, and I could clearly feel her scraping through my skin, bite by bite, chewing her way deeper. It’s a profoundly disturbing sensation, even if it doesn’t hurt. I’m sure it would have hurt if I’d let her keep going and she got into the meat. I flung her away in shock at the feeling.
Gin & Tonic
If Betty lived in Australia, odds are 10-1 that lizard would have been venomous.
UncleEbeneezer
Small lizards are fine. But the big ones we saw all over the place at Uxmal and Ek Balam temples in the Yucatan, no thanks. Very cool, but definitely would NOT want one jumping on me.
Jackie
@SteverinoCT: I saved a bird from our momma cat, who brought it in alive – I assume to teach her kittens how to hunt. I grabbed her with bird in her mouth and raced outside. I put my fingers in her mouth next to her jaw and the bird flew out of her mouth! Momma was PISSED at me and shunned me for several hours lol
bjacques
You should call someone about those lizards
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CuoCiAok83M&t=103s
Geminid
I knew a carpenter who was traumatized by a rat while on a renovation job. He was walking across a room one day when the rat scurried across the floor. Bob happened to plant his foot right in the rat’s path and it ran up his pants leg. He was a tall lanky guy so I guess his pants were pretty loose in the legs.
People who knew him well said the experience really messed with Bob’s mind for a long time.
Betty Cracker
@Major Major Major Major: Aww!
trollhattan
Had an apartment in a new complex, build on ag land. After moving in I’d occasionally hear rattling from the kitchen range hood, but figured it was the wind moving a flap or somesuch. One day I investigated by dropping the vent screen and found myself face-to-face with the lizard who’d been trying to get the hell out of the kitchen.
I obliged, as did he by staying put on the screen as I slooooooly walked it to the door and then outside.
To this day I can’t say why I didn’t flip out and flip the lizard into the depths of my apartment.
Eyeroller
@TaMara: The praying mantises that are big enough to kill hummingbirds are mostly non-native invasives (the European mantis and the Chinese mantis, plus a few others) that were introduced by humans, and are distributed as “natural” pest control. They are in the process of extincting native species of praying mantis, which are considerably smaller. The Chinese mantis is the one usually responsible for killing hummingbirds, apparently.
NotMax
@Major Major Major Major
Congrats.
So much for ubiquitous good pizza and bagels. I suppose, though, there are advantages.
;)
sab
@satby: Yikes. I DID NOT KNOW THAT.
NotMax
@satby
Caughts and prayers.
:)
cckids
@Major Major Major Major: At the University of Washington, the huge fountain in the quad (where all the cherry trees/blossoms are) has two ramps so baby ducks can get in & out.
mvr
@twbrandt (formerly tom): You can’t blame a lizard for living in Florida.
cckids
@UncleEbeneezer: I’ll never live down a trip to a natural science museum with my kids 20-ish years ago. There was an iguana exhibit; one was lounging in a tree. I leaned close to get a better look, and the damn thing absolutely LEAPT at me. A 3-foot long lizard slamming into the glass inches from my face did trigger a loud scream. People came running. My kids were on the floor laughing.
It wasn’t scary, but very startling. Do not like large lizards.
mvr
@J R in WV: Hope the news was good.
different-church-lady
“A woman rescued what she thought was a lizard. When she saw what it really was she screamed.”
OzarkHillbilly
Thanx for the laugh Betty. I came out into my front porch the other day to see a Downy Woodpecker on the deck. Thought, “Oh shit, I hope it’s just stunned.” figuring it flew into on of the windows there. Picked it up and set it on the kneewall along the front of the porch and immediately it flew away.
Another successful “rescue”.
Quinerly
In honor of your encounter and JB’s upcoming shows where I see Ticketmaster is getting close to $700 a piece for some seats at certain venues…..I present…..
“Off to See the Lizard”
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xZxtKUcwfEY
NotMax
What hath AI wrought? Part-tay!
persistentillusion
@Jackie: I’m in Colorado. When my daughter was in high school, her room was in the lower level of the house. She was in her room and gave out an ear-splitting scream, shrieking that there was a BAT in her room. Went down, captured the hawk moth and haven’t let her live it down since.
Major Major Major Major
@NotMax: New York bagels are like eating a loaf of bread anyway.
There actually are three good pizza places and at least one good bagel place in the neighborhood though.
Shana
@A woman from anywhere (formerly Mohagan): I could have written this comment.
brendancalling
@Jess: when I was living in a basement apartment in Vermont, I had a bunch of basement spiders—the ones with the tiny bodies and the long legs.
When I discovered the first one, I thought it was a brown recluse—I’d had run-ins with those fuckers in Tennessee. To this day it’s the only spider I’ll kill—and that includes the black widow I found in a paper coffee cup in my car. That little bugger was quickly (and carefully) released to the wild. So I tried to squash the spider with a shoe, and in so doing broke my index finger. It needed a brace for days and healed funny.
That was, I now believe, my punishment for trying to kill an innocent spider (it’s bad luck to kill spiders). Because as I found out soon after, there are NO brown recluse spiders in Vermont. It’s not their habitat. After that, I let the spiders do their thing, and talked nicely to them.
FastEdD
I learned living out in the country having a couple dog pooper scoopers comes in handy. One particularly grueling day I finally got to lie down for a rest. Screaming in the hallway. I get up to investigate and it is a %#@@!! rattlesnake. Indoors. In the hallway. First-grab the dog and move him so he doesn’t get bitten because he can’t see the damn thing. Next, open the screen door and grab the pooper scooper. Last, grab the %$##!! snake, run outside holding it away from my body and toss the thing down the hill. That was the third one inside the house that week. Sometimes it is a struggle just to get through the day.
zhena gogolia
Nah gonna read this thread
Jackie
@persistentillusion: LOL! I wouldn’t either!😁
Betty Cracker
@FastEdD: Three venomous snakes inside in a week? I’d burn the house down and move! Damn!
Gin & Tonic
@brendancalling:
I prefer to wear my shoes on my feet.
Rocks
Did it try to sell you insurance?
Quinerly
ABC reporting that Pence has been subpoenaed.
Baud
@Quinerly:
By whom?
Princess
@FastEdD: An easier solution would have been to burn the house down to the ground. That’s what I would have done. Take the dog first, of course.
UncleEbeneezer
@cckids: I would’ve freaked out too. A 3-foot ANYTHING leaping at you is scary.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: Jack Smith
Quinerly
@Baud: Jack Smith
KenK
“… and temporarily keep them as pets.”
Then what, Betty?
UncleEbeneezer
Betty Cracker
@KenK: I would then release them, of course! ;-)
pat
I hate bats. We used to get them coming down from the attic. I was alone in the house one night, reading in bed, it was warm, so I didn’t have any covers, when one fluttered into the bedroom.
I screamed and rolled under the bed and was still there when the rest of the family came home and for a long time after that I was known as Patsy Skip Under the Bed. There was a book by that name…
zhena gogolia
@pat: I would have too.
There was one flying around our church one day. Very far up, but I still freaked out.
Doc Sardonic
@FastEdD: Rattlesnakes in the house vetoed any chance of myself and spouse relocating to Arizona for her job. Cleaning up blood and patching snake shot damage would get tedious after a while, ‘cause I ain’t getting within pooper scooper type distance of one of those fuckers.
Martin
@UncleEbeneezer: Really speaks to how much the concept of ‘executive privilege’ is just calvinball for the courts. If anyone had any fucking idea what it did or didn’t cover, Smith would just drop the subpoena. Essentially they’re negotiating what the definition of it is today.
CarolPW
@pat: A few springs ago I was raising one of my giant umbrellas on the patio the first time that year. The easiest way to raise them is to pull one rib out a bit, duck under and grab the rope near the pulley, and then raise it. I started raising it and about a foot in front of my face was a bat, hanging upside down from the umbrella fabric and staring at me.I love bats, and although it scared the shit out of me I managed to slowly duck back down and lower it. Then I came inside and jumped up and down going AAGH! AAGH! AAGH! for a while to work off the adrenaline. I opened the umbrella well after dark, and left it up for days so it gave up.
zhena gogolia
@CarolPW: Ooh, ours used to fill up with moths. It never occurred to me there might be a bat under there.
JPL
@CarolPW: When I moved to my current location, there was an old house on a lot behind me. The person that lived there was 90 plus and had three acres. At dusk dozens of bats would appear scooping up all the mosquitoes in my yard. After he died the land was sold and now, I have two million plus houses behind me and no bats. I do have mosquitos though.
PST
@zhena gogolia: The nice thing about having an umbrella bat is that you never have to worry about moths.
JPL
Leaves are always being brought into the house and once I went to pick one up and it moved. A hairy old spider was underneath. I didn’t like that.
nc lurker
i left the flue open on my fireplace.
woke about 5 am to use the loo,and the was a bat stuck,flapping in the john.
wingspan about a foot.
went to the kitchen,got a pot and fished it out.
took it onto the deck and gently decanted it.
came back a few minutes later and it had departed.
went on to the deck much later for a cocktail,full daylight,and saw a bat flying towards me.
circled just above my head a few times and flapped off.
i swear it came back to say thanks.
zhena gogolia
@PST: Ri-i-i-i-ght.
Jobeth
When we lived in Florida I used to pay my daughter and her friends 25 cents each anytime they found a lizard in the house and removed it. That all ended the day I caught them catching lizards in the backyard and releasing them in the house so they could catch them! Smart kids!
mrmoshpotato
@zhena gogolia:
Does your church have a belfry? It should know where to go.
zhena gogolia
Okay, I’ll play. Ten o’clock at night, (then-)husband isn’t home yet. Orange kitty is poking at something in the hallway (we used to leave the door cracked so they could go in and out). I go to investigate. Coiled-up snake, which I poke and it doesn’t move, so I think it’s dead. I sweep it into a dustpan and go to the back sliding door to throw it onto the deck. As I open the door, it starts slithering. I scream bloody murder as it (luckily) slithers off the dustpan onto the deck. I close the door and wait for the sirens that will certainly start wailing after all my neighbors call 911. Dead silence. So I know that screaming into the night is futile.
zhena gogolia
@mrmoshpotato: We really don’t. We don’t even have a spire, as it was knocked off in a hurricane in the 1930s and never replaced.
satby
@CarolPW: I love bats too (so does our beloved commenter Subaru Diane 😉). When I lived in rural Michigan I used to sit on my roofed deck and watch them come out to mosquito-hunt at night. I lived next to a wetland with a few hollow trees, so lots of bats to eat the lots of mosquitoes that hatched in the swamp. It was hypnotic.
Betty Cracker
@Doc Sardonic: Same! I once watched my grandfather and father coordinate to dispatch a coral snake. My grandfather used a pool skimmer net with a long handle to scoop it up and drop it over the fence, and my dad was standing by to shoot that fucker! Never mess with a coral snake. (And yep, we knew it wasn’t a king snake — red touches black, you’re okay, Jack; red touches yellow will kill a fellow.)
PaulWartenberg
Read the part about you banging your head on the dryer door, Betty, I hope you are okay and all.
J R in WV
@mvr:
The urologist/surgeon was optimistic, but won’t really know much for real until the path reports come back middle of next week. The nursing staff was great, treated my pain well, etc.
It’s a very good hospital, has saved Wife’s life at least a couple of times over the past 15 or 18 years. Mine too now, maybe.
JPL
@zhena gogolia: I’m not a fan of snakes and since I live in GA you can’t miss them. Once while a putting political flyer on a mailbox, I did not notice a baby copperhead getting warm on top of the mailbox. It hissed and i jumped. The person driving said should we take a pic, and I said no, just go. He did call me the next day to make sure I was okay.
TomN
@The Moar You Know: I was thinking similarly: Add one or more of the following: 1.Mustard 2. Being naked 3. Actual physical injury-and it’s a Cole story
Amir Khalid
I wish I had an animal-encounter story as cool as you guys. One rainy night many years ago, a pipit flew in through my bedroom window; after it had a bit of rest, I carried it back to the window and let it fly off.
JPL
@Amir Khalid: Maybe not as cool, but definitely sweeter.
PaulWartenberg
As a youth growing up in Florida, my brothers and I would make an effort to catch a lizard in our hands. We would goad them into jumping onto the fence but have our hand nearby to slip into place where the lizard hoped to jump. For the most part, the lizards would be scared, but settled in our hands since all we did was cup them. We’d inevitably walk them over to a shrubbery and lower them onto a leaf to let them jump away.
Years later, visiting a friend in Clearwater, they had a problem with a good-sized lizard – about a 5-incher – in their kitchen, so I tried the “trick them into jumping on my hand” trick with him. Sonofabitch bit into my index finger. Thankfully, he didn’t draw any blood, but he was clamped on tight. This was when my friend had two kids about 10ish and 7ish, and my friend insisted on a clean-word house, so it was the first time they’d ever heard “SONOFABITCH” screamed in that house. I was able to walk the lizard out the front door to a waiting palm tree branch, but the damn lizard wouldn’t let go until my friend’s daughter spritzed it with a water bottle.
Then I paid two dollars to the swear jar.
CarolPW
@satby:
Years ago we were doing some bat density work related to wind farm siting in New Mexico. In the middle of the night we would go out and park by the ponds used to water cattle count the bats swooping down to drink (we had ultrasonic detectors). The other places we would count bats would be at the giant bright light in each ranch yard that theoretically reduced people driving off with the ranch equipment. There would be hundreds of insects and dozens of bats, all perfectly lit.
UncleEbeneezer
First on CNN: Trump’s former national security adviser subpoenaed in special counsel probes of classified documents, January 6
Danielx
This may be a dying thread, but this post ranks up there with riding on the exterminator float in the holiday parade.
UncleEbeneezer
@Martin: My understanding is that failure by DOJ to get this stuff litigated prior to dropping indictments would be very dangerous to the chances of getting a conviction. This is the slow but necessary dotting of i’s, crossing of t’s needed for a case like this. But it’s a good sign that Smith means business.
J R in WV
Bats! I love bats, tiny kittens with wings to me. When we moved out here there were dozens of 1910 vintage oil wells with sheds for giant hit or miss engines, belts and giant wheels. Great habitat for bats, we had dozens of bats in the sky any pleasant evening, and very few skeeters.
As I rehabbed the old house, I had one room mostly empty, was putting up sheets of foam insulation and covering that with sheetrock. Hot summertime evening, windows open.
Suddenly there’s a bat orbiting the room, round and round. Timothy the big gray kitty was standing on a shelf out in the middle of the room, and would put his front feet up as teh bat came around, caught it, it flapped some, and Tim would let it go. So I finally went over and stood right next to the action.
Bat came around, Tim caught it, and I grabbed both of them, out the window they flew. Not very big bat.
Another adventure, again 40+ years ago. I had walked up to the head of the hollow where neighbors (still, on another closer farm now) had brewed some beer, and called for help, as it was too carbonated and blowing the tops off. Strong, too, when I went out into the yard later on I saw 6 stars in Orion’s Belt! The end of beer drinking that night!
Walking home down the hollow, on what is still a dirt farm road, no moon but plenty of stars, and my flashlight was just a glow in the bulb. Suddenly as I near our house, something falls out of the sky onto the road, lands in a shallow puddle, splishes a little.
I use the faint glow of my dying flashlight to see a bat… I wonder about the series of events… could the bat be ill? Then one of the bats flew away! I am one of the few people to have seen bats making love in the wild~!!~
I like bats, they fill an important niche in our natural world, and are harmless, at least around here. No bigger than a field mouse but with wings. Cute.
Betty Cracker
@zhena gogolia: OMG, you’re brave to get within dustpan-length of a snake, dead or alive!
Many years ago, I had a long Swedish ivy in a hanging basket that I would occasionally remove from its hook in my crappy student slum apartment and hang on a clothesline post in the backyard to get some sun.
One day I was carrying it back inside, holding it up higher than my head by the hook so I wouldn’t step on the trailing tendrils, when a slender green snake that was in the basket raised its head and looked me in the eye. I shrieked and hurled that basket all the way into the next yard!
I probably broke a shot put record or something! I was able to salvage the ivy, which lived outdoors for the rest of its life. I hope the snake survived the ordeal too.
Ladyraxterinok
I was a junior camp counselor in the 50s in OK
One lunch I was calmly eating at a table when the head counselor whispered for me to sit very still. After a bit she said I could move.
It turned out a scorpion had been calmly walking across the ceiling above my head.
Ladyraxterinok
Earlier one summer in the 40s I attended a day camp for a week. The last day the counselor discovered that our group’s base near the small creek had a copperhead nest (that’s what I remember.Hard to believe as an adult) below near the river.
I rember finding that interesting (I was maybe 8 or 9), but I remember clearly the counselor’s extreme shock.
zhena gogolia
@Betty Cracker: It was the only time in my life I ever did a full fledged horror movie scream
mvr
@J R in WV:
That’s all relatively good news then. Didn’t want to pry but was checking through the day for updates to this morning’s post explaining why you were awake.
SteverinoCT
Me, too. Haven’t seen any in a few years. The swifts have been picking up the slack.
ExpatchadPutin has become Stalin, the destroyer of worlds
@cckids: Drumheller Ducks?
ExpatchadPutin has become Stalin, the destroyer of worlds
@cckids: Drumheller Ducks?
Here in the Philippines, geckos are constant honored guests, living behind large picture frames and such, coming out for snacks. I watch them at night on the ceiling above my bed, ridding us of mosquitos.
Mote startling are the rare (!) hand-sized black spiders on the wall next my face, but also welcomed….but not by tourists, as a rule.
Scamp Dog
@Major Major Major Major: Welcome back! Are you up for a Jackal get-together?
sab
@satby: I love bats ( so very cute), but there was the time I was in the bathtub and saw a groggy bat wake up after falling asleep hanging on my bathrobe. He/she decided to fly around the bathroom distraught while I was wearing nothing in the bathtub. We each squeaked and shrieked in our own distress. Bat got downstairs and I got clothes then I came downstairs and opened the door to let bat out.
My rabies vaccinated dogs watched with mild interest the whole time: big mom, small bat.
Paul in KY
@bbleh: Well done!
Paul in KY
@TaMara: Agree on the camera! Man, that would have been something to behold.
Paul in KY
@dearmaizie: We are quite helpful in that way.
Paul in KY
@CaseyL: Lived in S. Florida. I miss the beach/ocean. Some of the ocean birds, like pelicans & frigate birds & terns. Sometimes the rain, as they had some really killer rainstorms.
Paul in KY
@oldgold: Bundling! The damn thing won’t stop going on about bundling!
Paul in KY
@UncleEbeneezer: I just saw some very big & tasty iguanas at Tulum.
Paul in KY
@Betty Cracker: In hindsight, they shouldn’t have killed it (IMO). They are very meek and you just about have to slam one on the ground and then stick it’s head on a body part to get them to bite.