Reader. Listen to me now and hear me later.
Florida, while delivering beautiful sunshiney days, is also a House of Horrors.
You guys, we almost had a Strike 3 Incident this week.
Almost, because while the incident itself was startling, the actual culprit was not.
I’ve been livin’ down here in ol’ Floor-eed-ah for a whole lot longer than I would have guessed, had we been guessing back in January of this year. I wouldn’t have guessed a southern wind was blowing me south, yet here I sit, comin’ up on putting in five months. I know, I know – I’m as surprised as you are.
For the most part I haven’t cried nearly as much as one would have thought. Change is hard, but I guess changing to a swimming pool and a lot of beautiful days is helpful on drying up tears.
I have, however, been a whole lot more scared by wildlife than I would have ever guessed.
The big-as-my-head wolf spider under my desk, than ran right up my wall, and how that didn’t have me heading to zee hills is surprising to me.
We’ve had the scorpion in my room incident.
I’ve had a variety of worms and daily snails. Now, before you’re all, “Pishaw, a snail!” Let’s review the evidence:
They are big and snail-y. And yet I just go on about my day, as if I haven’t just encountered this face-to-face in the early morning before I’ve even had one whole cuppa coffee. Life a wild life badass.
Then, we’ve had these cute armadillos that have held up traffic while crossing the road:
At my workplace, I’ve been mildly concerned when I was in the lunch room making my coffee and could hear some critter running laps around the drop ceiling.
And then stuff began to drop outta the drop ceiling:
And still I stayed, and didn’t count that as a Florida Strike.
I even PARTICIPATED in standing nearby while two of the office gals set up a trap to get out the critter and rehome it to the scary as fuck great outdoors.
Someone had to be the documentarian, from a safe and assured distance.
I can with 100000% certainty assure you that I would NOT be the girl removing the ceiling tile to set up a trap.
I was even afraid of the trap itself, quite frankly, because it was very snappy sounding when it was triggered.
I supplied the peanut butter on bread idea as a very successful lure, which worked about an hour after the trap was set.
Again, I participated in see what was caught, while the Office Trappers took it down and drove it away and released this cute, yet destructive, girl.
Yes, the squirrel is a girl. We still have her kids living in the ceiling, and have been unsuccessful in getting them out. But that’s neither here nor there, eventually they will depart the premises.
So you see, all that. I’ve encountered ALL THAT in five short months, and I’m not even talking about the palmetto bugs and whatnot because i’m all casual about that, mostly. Ahem.
But.
I have taken note, from various sources including my friendie SC who lives in Australia now, where all these Florida scary things are just her Australian scary thing’s snacks, mentioned “I check the toilet before I sit down” and I have been, too, only maybe not consistently.
Until after my scorpion incident, and I figured it had to get up in this room somehow, and maybe it came in from my toilet.
So I look before I leap, shall we say.
This past week while at the House of Horrors work, I went to the bathroom to dispose of my two cups of coffee.
I preened into the toilet as I was getting near, and saw something JUMPING up outta the water at me.
Once again, I let out another bloodcurdling scream professional call to action with a demurely stated “Hey, co-workers, there appears to be something alive in the toilet.”
Luckily, we hired Trapper Jackie (from photo above) in September, and she sits nearby and came to check out the situation for me.
I will just go on the record as stating that my screams barely get noticed at work any longer. No one was even coming to see what was happening, I just heard some quiet inquiries of, “Spider?” while every one continued on their day, which is really concerning, because a Bad Guy could be hiding in there taking a machete to my head and no one would come running because apparently I’ve become the Girl Who Screams Wolf Spider. I’m just saying, when someone very professionally screams, the polite thing to do is to come and save the northern girl find out why.
Trapper Jackie discovered it was a pretty good sized frog jumping around in the toilet, so really, not a scary critter, except it could have JUMPED UP IN MY P-HOLE or my B-HOLE had I sat down without looking. I’m going on record as stating that if I am ever on a toilet and feel a thwamp on either of the holes – the P or the B – it is ALL THE STRIKES, and I don’t care what sort of critter is doing the thwamping.
Trapper Jackie went to slap on a pair of latex gloves to retrieve the froggy, but by the time she got back it had gone out the way it came in, and lets just say I was nervous AF to pee for the rest of the day, but like a trooper, I carried on and didn’t even count this as a Florida Strike.
Later in the same week a turtle was discovered living right outside our doorway, and I jumped up to go see it, because no one is afraid of seeing a turtle, even I can outrun a TURTLE for crying out loud (at least I confidently tell myself I can), and it was pretty cute and not that little at all.
One of the girls picked it up and started coming towards me with it, and I saw that little mouth opening and closing like it wanted to snap onto something like, oh, my fingers, and I yelled, “DON’T COME AT ME WITH THAT!!!” while scampering away to safety.
And Trapper Jackie just shook her head and muttered, “I just don’t know how you even get along in life.”
I’m not sure myself, to be quite honest. At least not in the Wild South.