Reptiles and Insects

Forget “T’is the Season to be Jolly” – round here, it’s the season for reptiles and insects.

Lizards keep making an appearance on a regular basis courtesy of our two cats. One, in particular, takes great joy in bringing them in, dropping them down and then ‘forgetting’ they are there. It’s all part of the game but, the trouble is, he’s so flippin’ useless at it, they always escape and usually into a floor-level cupboard.

Then the kids and I start the usual pulling everything out and searching for it. Actually, I tentatively pull everything out and search for it while the kids watch on wide-eyed, like some fascinating freak show is unfolding before their eyes.

It probably never would’ve occurred to them to fear these creatures had they not witnessed my reaction.

One Friday a friend and I were having a celebratory ‘I survived the week’ glass of bubbles after school, as you do, while the kids ran rampant throughout the house. Everything was going swimmingly until Master Seven raced up and dropped half a wriggling lizard next to my wine glass. Did you hear that?! HALF a WRIGGLING lizard!

I, of course, reacted like Scooby Doo chancing upon a ghost and have never left my bar stool quicker.

I shot across to the other side of the kitchen while Master Seven, bemused, looked from me to my friend, who had the opposite reaction and was sitting rooted to the spot with her hands covering her mouth.

“Take that THING off my bench,” I finally managed, watching it writhe before our eyes.

“And where is the other half?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Master Seven shrugged nonchalantly before picking up the tail and walking off.

I didn’t see where he went with it as I was too busy wondering the best way to sterilize the bench.

That incident was right up there with the live mouse being delivered to me in bed during rodent season. I won’t even go there with the huge weta which landed on my head one night.

The latest incident was the giant insect which I had to get out of the house the other evening – I’m still unsure if it was a cockroach or a huhu bug but had I known those things could fly I would never have attempted it.

It did not end well. In a scene reminiscent to Our World, but in my own lounge, I watched from a distance as the cat attempted to eat it alive, managing to detach two legs and half a wing before it blunderingly and crazily took off – towards me!

After a fair amount of screaming I calmed down and bravely, and might I say, rather heroically, caught the invader in a container before throwing the whole thing out the sliding door.

But, alas, I was not fast enough in shutting the door and it flew straight back in towards the light.

Round two and I succeeded but it took the night’s sleep offa me, that one.