So I was minding my own business on a perfectly boring and dry day. Being dry, I thought to myself, “Self, how about a cup of water?” I was not thirsty, but it was a good excuse to move around a little.
And trying ever so vainly and in slow motion to hide behind the extra water containers was a tiny little brown snake.
I hunkered down and looked at him, because it just wouldn’t do to get bit by a baby rattler in the office. It would blow our safety rating all to hell, and the paperwork would be endless.
But no, no rattles or buttons, and the wrong shape anyway. So I grabbed him behind the head, because I can’t resist a good critter distraction and the dogs are getting boring. I didn’t grab him close enough because he turned around and bit my finger. He seemed to realize that he wasn’t going to be able to eat something the size of the Empire State Building pretty quickly, so he let go.
I held him in my hand to warm his cold little self up and showed the secretary. She’s a good sport and must be getting used to me by now. She even touched him.
After the lizard incident, I thought twice about letting him loose in my office. That lizard damn near took over the whole place; at one point, he had me treed in the hall.
He started to warm up and thought about going up my sleeve, but again, bad idea little buddy. So I took him outside and let him go underneath one of the equipment sheds.
We find the weirdest things in this office. No badgers or mushrooms yet, but I’ll keep my eye out.
Well if we had interns to catch the flies, maybe we could dispense with the reptiles.
The lizard was a monstrous blue belly that one of the field guys thought I would like. He gave it to me and I put it in one of my houseplants when I had to go out in the field myself. I thought I would just catch him later and bring him home, but he had other ideas. He ate flies for me for a few weeks, but then he started traveling. I walked down the hall one day and there he was, all puffed up in the middle of the way, hissing at me. The nerve! He was a little tricky to recatch, but I did eventually get him outside.
We have four office dogs that belong to various people, but they’re more useless than interns. Well, except mine, who’s the only trained one of the lot, but rarely do we have the call to herd subcontractors around. But if there’s ball-fetching to be done, he’s prepared.
**Cowgirl, ** I’m glad I don’t work with you. I draw the line at snakes.
I’m the official bat-catcher where I work. Everyone else is horrified by them, but I think they’re kinda cute. I won’t let anyone hurt them-- after all, it’s not their fault that they’re bats. I’m sure if given a choice, they would have chosen to be a fluffy bunny, but that’s the breaks.
I love snakes (and bats!!! They’re so cuuuuute like tiny little winged chow puppies!) and love catching and playing with them. Not sure why people are so freaked out by them, even when they know that a particular snake isn’t poisonous.
Me, I catch bees. In my bare hands. It freaks out co-workers and various other people when I do it but I’ve never been stung.
I’d like to catch a few garter snakes and let them loose in my enclosed back patio/garden area. They’d probably find thier way out though.
I know there’s tons of lizards around here but the only ones I see are sunning themselves on driftwood at the beach and they’re too small and too fast. I think they would miss the beach life anyway. We have salamanders in the woods too but there are some species (maybe all of them here) that exude a poisonous slime. I wouldn’t mind the slime but the poison, not so much.
Me too! I ADORE bees! Have you ever put a drop of soda or kool-aid on your finger and let one drink it? It’s the coolest thing to watch. Bees are so cute and fuzzy and none has ever stung me and I let them walk all over me all the time. Never met anyone else who liked to catch bees, though.
(I should clarify: none that I’ve caught and let walk on me has ever stung me. I did get stung once when I accidentally smushed a bee that I didn’t know was on my leg. I got a staph infection from it, actually…)
I’m glad there’s another bee lover here! I love looking at them up close. They’re so interesting! Can’t wait to try the drop of pop and getting them to land on me.
The way I figure it, bees sting as a last resort. Yes, there’s the mob mentality thing but there’s something you have to do order to get them so riled up and that’s a reletively occurance anyway. Bees quietly going about pollenating flowers or just trying trying to find a way out of your house aren’t interested in stinging. Most bees, once they’ve stung, will die. You can’t serve the Queen if you’re dead. It’s better to be alive for that. Hence my last resort theory. If you’re gentle and careful, it’s not so hard catching them in your hands.
The last time I got stung was over thirty years ago. I was barefoot and didn’t see the bee in the grass. I don’t blame it for stinging me when it was about to get squished. Got bit by a hornet 5 or 6 years ago when I had scooped it up and was about to let it outside. Turns out hornets are a whole 'nuther thing entirely. :smack:
Yeah I tell people that all the time… bees sting as a last resort, kamikazee suicide kind of thing. Stinging isn’t their first instinct or they’d have died out millions of years ago.
Up until now I’d had this idea you were an Aussie, but there’s no way you’d be blase about a brown snake biting your finger if that were the case. I got goosebumps just thinking about it, myself.
Score -1 to me for being a lousy judge of location.
I did something like that a few years ago when I worked at a state park. I kept a bottle cap full of sprite next to me in the permit booth. It was a yellowjacket though so I wasn’t about to try to grab him. He made a good pet until I had a day off and someone else went into the booth. When I returned, he was much more two dimensional.
The only creepy crawlies that I’ve caught are wolf spiders. I picked up two at the state park, one of which a woman found in her couch after it gave her a nasty bite. She didn’t smash the thing though. Put it in a tupperware with some cat food to eat. I also found a wolf spider about two inches from my knee while I was putting laundry in at the laundrette. I took them all home, showed them to my daughter and to Alias, and let them go in the backyard by the old shed.
I used to love snakes until several years back when I had bad incidents two days in a row, the first with a monster Timber Rattler and then with a very aggressive Cottonmouth. Both struck at me, as did the Coachwhip a year later and the experiences have left me a little freaked about snakes.
So Saturday, when I was trimming (leveling) the head-high fig ivy on my house wall, those experiences being several years back were the last thing on my mind. That is until I grabbed the next handful of ivy to trim and realize as I’m cutting it that one of the vines is indeed a fairly large snake and that his head is embedding itself in the fleshy part of my hand. The clippers immediately clamped down as if they had a mind of their own as I, unable to do little more that make a gurgling sound, released the mass with the other hand.
Seconds later I discovered myself halfway across the lawn, looking back at a once uniform row of azaleas now with a rather large perforation in their middle. Ugh, snakes, especially those biting at me, just give me the willies.
Ugh! I would hope that if I somehow moved halfway around the world, that I would figure out what was poisonous and what was not. It was just a little gopher snake and didn’t have any teeth to speak of.
Opal, I’ve always liked bees too. I started catching them as a kid, and I’ve only been stung by squashing one by accident too. I’m also rather fond of spiders, except Black Widows, who give me irrational shrieking heebie jeebies.
The first time I helped set up our local Junior Rodeo (with a bunch of men) I grabbed a panel bare-handed with a Black Widow on it, and shrieked like a girl. The cowboys all got a kick out of that and have never let me live it down, although I’m the only woman in the crew who gets down and does the dirty work.
Aw, Hal, spiders are cool! I’ve recently moved from a quite spiderless apartment in the city to a more spidery one in the 'burbs. I’m thrilled every time I find one. A little jumping spider was on a cheir pillow the other day. I scooped her up bee-style and let her outside. So cool! I can’t wait for the big garden spiders to show up.
By the way, do you know how to tell a boy spider from a girl spider? The boys have what look like short antennae. They’re called paups and are the sexual organs. They lock into slits on the girl spider’s back and that’s how baby spiders are made.