an unfortunate history with inanimate objects
I would like to say :::Lizard on the Doorstep::: is the only chance encounter I have had with an inanimate object in which I mistook an inanimate object for an immediate threat of the antisocial animal variety.
This would not be true.
Age 7: When asked to take the trash out after dark, mistook a discarded chair and couch in the dumpster for bears.
Age 8: When crawling under house foundation [don’t ask, it is an eight year old thing] mistook mattress entrails for pack of attacking tarantulas.
[One reason my step-father will always be endeared to me is, he returned from each above emergency site saying things like “they did look like bears” and “that did look like a herd of attacking tarantulas.”]
[Also he was totally right they did.]
Flash to Now: Going out onto balcony after dark for a smoke, mistook oak leaf of unusual size for alligator lizard.
In my defense, there have been a LOT of incidents that totally did involve living creatures of questionable hospitality:
:::Playing Chicken With the Bear:::
Also in my defense I have had a lot of non-reported antisocial animal encounters:
•Swarmed by usually-brine-shrimp-eating-not-max-eating spiders at the Greater Salt Lakes —
[I hope never again to find myself stripping on a public boating dock shouting, “Hit me with the hose!”] —•Attacked by an innocuous twig that wrapped around my ankle and tried to bite me —
[yes, snakes do fly] —
•Escaped 350+ pound pigs trying to eat me —
[technically that was a lot my fault I should not have been in the pigs’ yard on that farm but still, death by 300 pound pigs does not look good on a tomb stone] —
•Chased by an antisocial goat —
[yeah yeah yeah everything trying to hit you with horns looks big and aggressive when you are three but still, mental scars, people, mental scars!]
•There was a standard poodle who lived in a house on the way to school when I was in first grade and that damn poodle chased my bike every day on the way to school —
[I have a scar on my wrist still from the day my bike’s chain fell off changing gears and that damn poodle finally caught me and took me down.]
[Also, no matter how many times your kid mistakes couches in the dumpster for bears after dark, (ONE TIME!), maybe listen when your kid tells you every day a dog is attacking her on the way to school — that works out better than the day the school nurse calls saying your kid is all messed up from a bike crash and dog attack.]
TALLYING UP THE LIST here as well as events to remain unmentioned [yes unmentioned and they will REMAIN UNMENTIONED TOO] I’m going to say there were more antisocial animal encounters than inanimate object encounters.
Also that oak leaf of unusual size totally had it coming.