Surprise!
Welcome to Surprise Week here at the Ball. Seriously – if you thought I would post pictures of me naked in the shower with a snail – or naked at all – then I am the one who is truly surprised. You can blame the title on my fellow Debs who dared me.
That said, many surprising things have taken place in both my humble bathroom and my shower.
We live on forty acres of land, surrounded by trees and deer and wild turkeys and other miscellaneous flora and fauna. Also, we bought the land more than we bought the house, which has a few – eccentricities. As in, when we first bought it there were a few places where you could see the outside from the inside. We’ve worked hard on the house and it’s very cozy and comfortable, although as the Viking says, “We’re not Good Housekeeping here.” Or Martha Stewart.
Anyway, back to the snail.
Okay, it wasn’t really a snail. It was a slug. Slug is such an ugly word, and it wasn’t one of those huge, nasty, slimy guys that looks like a dog turd with horns, just a cute little garden slug. They’re related to snails, right? And if he’d had the darling little shell on his back he would have looked exactly like a snail, so I took him outside and let him live, contrary to my **General Shower Policy.
To this day, I have no idea what he was doing in my shower, or how he got in. Or why. Sometimes there are no answers to life’s little mysteries.
The frog is another thing entirely.
I’m pretty sure I know how he got in. We have an abundance of adorable little tree frogs around here. They like to perch on the door frame or hang on the side of the house. We have no objection to this. They are cute, they eat mosquitoes, and I like their croaking. However, this behavior does occasionally mean they wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we find dried squished frog glued to the top of the door later.
This little frog’s tale had a happier ending.
When I walked into the bathroom, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. I did that assessment you do – you know the one. Intruder alert – is it big enough to eat me? Will it bite? Is it a spider? The alarm was short lived. If you haven’t had the opportunity to notice, nothing moves in quite the same manner as a frog. Even other hopping critters, like bunnies or grasshoppers, have a different way of moving. Anyway, my attention was captured and I captured the little guy and released him outside as well. Who knows – maybe he and the slug have some sort of Critter Surveillance Service and they’re comparing notes.
Possibly, they are in cahoots with the grasshopper. He’s the one who really surprised me. Not so much that he got in, or even his visit to the shower. I did try to catch him when I first noticed him in the bathroom, but grasshoppers are pretty quick and I kept missing. Later, in the shower, I was a little startled when I reached up to the rack for my shampoo and saw him hanging upside down there, staring at me. Although he also had broken the rules of my **General Shower Policy, I chose to let him live, mostly because I figured if I tried to catch him then he would fall into the shower and he was too big to squish barefoot or to go easily down the drain.
This was my mistake.
Mr. Grasshopper visited me again, this time when I was soaking in a hot bathtub, totally absorbed in an exciting moment in a good book. There came a splash, and I was suddenly sharing my nice hot soak with an insect intruder. This time I was truly surprised. No, I did not scream or drop the book although I may possibly have flailed about and splashed. (You will be happy to know that the book survived the adventure unscathed)
Still, I was merciful. I have a soft spot for grasshoppers, God alone knows why. So I scooped him out and on to the floor to die another day. He paid for his sins some little time later, falling prey to a marauding cat.
Alas. No creature may escape the **General Shower Policy with total impunity.
**Deb Kerry’s General Shower Policy: creatures remaining outside of the shower may be permitted to live, based on individual discretion. But any spider or stinkbug or other small invading critter who is in the shower when the water comes on goes down the drain.
And now I want to know – have you ever been surprised in the shower by beasties large or small? Or is this the sort of thing that only happens to me?
That clinches it. I’m a city girl. Even in the suburbs! xo
Ah, such a boring existence, lol.
A stinkbug joined me in the shower just yesterday. And I flushed him right down the drain. I wish I could say I’d have shown more mercy on a grasshopper…but I’m not so sure…
The stinkbugs, they are everywhere! So annoying. I hate when they fly into my hair with a passion.
Not personally, thank goodness, but I do have a shower surprise story. When TG first moved to Texas many moons ago (before he met me), he rented an apartment in an old Victorian house. Now, after living there for a while, he was used to cockroaches. (Texas has roaches, and you will never get rid of them entirely.) One morning he stumbled blindly into the big, claw-foot tub, pulled the shower curtain closed … and was confronted with one giant mofo of a roach monster. Which was bad enough. But then it stood up on its hind legs and hissed at him. Yup, hissed. TG jumped out of the tub and ran naked to the kitchen, oblivious to staring roommates, grabbed a broom, and went on to dispatch the beast–from a safe distance. From then on he always pried his eyes open and did a tub check before stepping in. *grin*
Ugh. Apparently Mr. Cockroach had the idea that he was the one being intruded upon!
Kerry, this is HILARIOUS. I’ve never had a “shower surprise” of the type you mention, but I had a “living room surprise” once that I can share.
When we moved to Sacramento we bought and remodeled a house that I adore. Part of the remodel involved replacing all the carpets and (in some cases) sub-floors. About a month after everything finished and we moved in, I noticed a lump under the corner of the carpet in the dining room. I went to the corner and poked the lump with my toe – and a seven-inch skink came running out. (For those who have never seen one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skink) He was more like 14″ if you include the tail, and he was thoroughly put out by my disturbing his hiding place.
Skinks bite, and this one clearly had biting on his mind, so I got an empty box and persuaded him inside and then released him in the yard. A few days later, we found him clinging to the screen door, trying his darndest to get back in. Apparently the carpet is a better option than the grass!
Skunks do other things besides bite! Was there no special aroma wafting through the house? This is a truly funny story of the Susan type, and I love it.
We have skunks too, but this one was a skink – think a lizard on some kind of performance-enhancing drugs that give them aggression issues.
I worry about one of the skunks getting into the house though. They try from time to time, and the cats go wild. Two of our cats (ironically, the less intelligent ones) try to beat the skunks up through the door. The youngest cat (and the smartest one) comes running to tell us there’s a cat outside that really SHOULD be invited in to play. If she had opposable thumbs, and could get her way the skunks would be sitting in the living room.
The skinks slipped in during construction when we had the doors open and we’d rarely find them in weird places, mostly on the windowsills. The one under the carpet was over a month later though, so I was NOT expecting a furious, homicidal lizard to come racing out at me.
LOL. I was certain I read skunk. So I was thinking you were quite explicit in defining its measurements, rather than just saying “baby skunk.” Quite a difference one little vowel makes. : )
ha ha ha. I like your Shower Policy. I’m much less forgiving of gross things outside my shower, but I’m clearly not as much of an “All God’s Creatures” kind of gal like yourself. Despite being something of a tomboy, I’m quite squeamish about bugs and spiders and the like. The only thing worse than seeing a spider in the corner when you’re showering is turning to grab the soap and then turning back AND THE SPIDER IS GONE.
GAH!
I’m not crazy about the spideys myself, and I know exactly what you mean about the vanishing spider. I like to know where the suckers are. And by that I mean being sure they are not in my hair or crawling up my pant leg.
Pardon me. I need to be excused now to check my pants legs. I haven’t seen any spiders lately but the mere mention of arachnids in my underpants makes me squeamish…
Kerry, I hope to read much more about your little house in the big woods! Sounds glorious.
My honeymoon was rife with animal surprises, but the shower visitors–beautiful geckos skittering up and down the walls–felt sort of friendly and fun rather than scream worthy. The scorpions and snakes were more scream worthy. There was a lot of screaming.
Yeah, scorpions and snakes would be totally unwelcome in my shower. ~shudders~ Too big to go down the drain!
And then there was the morning I got ready to take a shower, opened the shower door somewhat bleary-eyed, and was confronted by a ::shudder:: MOUSE. Screams ensued. Husband came running from downstairs, thinking one of the kids was dead and seeing me standing there on the bed, stark naked, pointing at the bathroom and screaming “mouse! Do something!!!” chose to laugh. Amazingly, we are still married.