Where the Wild Things are

Growing up on a farm I encountered my share of animals. Cows, chickens, and pigs were just second nature. We had turkeys once, they are evil. Good thing they were never made the official bird of the United States. Then we'd never be able to kill and eat them. Thanksgiving would be really weird. I remember a deer following my mom home once when she went for a walk. It walked right into the yard with her. I remember a beaver wandering into our yard too. I think my dad shot him. I killed many a gopher in my youth. Not as many as my brother though. He's got an Olympic record in gopher killing for sure. My cousin and I used to take pails of water and drown the gophers. Then when they would come up for air we'd clobber them with a baseball bat. One time I remember we made special gopher whacking sticks and went on the hunt. That was fun day! I don't ever remember catching snakes and frogs like most little boys do. Mostly because a garder snake was a little hard to come by and the frogs we have back home are really little and not worth catching. I think we had a butterfly net at one point which we used a couple times, but was mostly useful in catching minnows at the lake. Many a sparrow was shot with a bee bee gun. I never really got into hunting like my brother or dad but the sight of a coyote carcass is just second nature to me. I'm not really grossed out by that sort of thing. I can remember coming home from school one day to see a headless cow hanging by its feet, freshly killed awaiting my uncle and dad to butcher the beast. I caught many chickens only to pass them on to my dad and his axe. I then chased down said chickens as they reenacted a scene from Sleepy Hollow. Once when I was five our rooster was pecking and chasing after me. I was really scared. I mean I was a small kid being chased by a Canadian Velocial Raptor. I got my plastic baseball bat and beat that rooster to a pulp. I then hid it under the rear tire of my dad's truck so he would think that he ran over it as he pulled out of the yard. Just the other day I was walking to work and there was a dead possum on the sidewalk. It freaked out everyone here. I was like, hmmm, dead possum. The next day it rained and I walked by the soggy dead possum without giving it a second glace. Others in my cast felt bad for it. Me, well, it looked like a big soggy flat-faced rat. Shouldn't have been in the road. I guess animals and death are not that big of a deal to me. It is just a natural progression of life.

About a week ago I was at the gym, doing my workout as normal. I was mid pushup sequence when I saw something flinch beside my hand. I must have jumped about 10 feet as the largest tarantula spider I have ever seen was creeping up on my right hand. I encountered a large herd of them a few weeks ago as I was walking home from the show. Our old creepy house must be some kind of safe house for the Critters of America club. There are nasty bugs everywhere. I was doing dishes the other day. Someone had burned their dinner and we had the windows open so the smoke could clear. (whoever thought it would be a good idea to make a kitchen with no ventilation is a moron) (and it was not me who burned their dinner thank you very much) Anyway I'm doing the dishes when this peregrine falcon of a moth flies into the kitchen. I ducked for cover then crawled out of the kitchen like an army soldier. I'm still paranoid about the ticks in this town. It makes my skin crawl, literally. Sometimes I will just be sitting watching TV and I'll get the willies; feeling like something is crawling up my leg. One night after killing some kind of beetle in my room I could not sleep. I was sure he had come back to get me. Him and all his zombie beetle friends avenging their deaths. Yesterday while I was taking a shower I looked up at the ceiling in the bathroom to find it swarming with at least 50 lady bugs. Now one lady bug, cute. 3 lady bugs, still cute. 50, just creepy. It was like a Hitchcock movie. All of them buzzing around, just waiting their signal to attack. Now I'm sure in the grand scheme of things bugs serve a great purpose, other than to creep me out. But I tell you I had I walked into the bathroom to find a dead possum hanging from the ceiling, I probably would have thought Hmm, I guess my brother is in town.

Dear Diary, where is the nearest Costco? I need some bug spray