HERE THERE BE MONSTERS

and it's crawling up my leg

The Horror, The Horror…

Texas: it’s a land of Wonders, and almost all of them are poisonous. So when I find a Creepie Crawlie in my clothes, I am inclined to undress…

To clarify: I am not one to easily spook. I was a Teacher of Preschool Back in the Day, and this gave me extraordinary powers of not being easily spooked. Children popped balloons, jumped off tables, poked me with sticks and other assorted items, all in the name of ‘scaring the Teacher’. Add to that my years as an EMT and a Volunteer FireFighter, and I am pretty much desensitised to all incoming sensory information; if I hear a loud bang or see fireballs, chances are I’ll just blink at it owlishly before telling everyone to move 500 feet back…

this was not the case today.

Now, I want to be perfectly clear: I did NOT scream. I was a paragon of stoicism. But let me say for the record that going outside barefoot and barelegged in cotton dress is not the proper protocol for ranches in Texas, even if one stays on the deck.

The deck is warm, and preferred by critters, especially near the wood pile. So when I eased over to the deck railing to offer eagerly awaited instructions to my husband working outside at the time, I picked up a passenger. Beneath the billowing sail of my floral cotton dress (it’s Texas, we’re still warm here) I offered passage into the Deep Interior of the Dubble-Wide of D00m, and the critter obliged by hitching a ride.

A wriggle and a fuzz brushed my thigh, and I put my hand down to brush it away, believing it to be a cat’s paw, for Willie was being woolly and patting at the hem of my dress. I then offered all my backporch wisdom to my Familial FarmHand, and hopped back inside…

that is when I knew something was deeply, deeply wrong.

There are many things allowable in this modern world, but I have standards, and my standard is that one should never feel something crawling up my barenekkid hip unless I want it there.

I did not want it there, nor did I know what it was - nor did I care. I enacted the PROTOCOL (TM).

PROTOCOL FOR REMOVING TEXAS CREEPIE CRAWLIES:

• Always assume it’s poisonous: THIS IS THE STANDARD. IT MAY BE A

  -COW ANT - giant freekin’ wingless stinging wasp - do not taunt

  -BROWN RECLUSE - hellspider with flesh-liquifying powers

  -FIRE ANT - blister inducing satan-spawn

  -ASP - tiny fuzzy caterpillar death from above, not to be confused with snakes

  -SCORPION - aka ‘Stingin’ Lizards’ aka nightmare fuel: CHECK YOUR BOOTS

  -CORAL SNAKE - Colorful Instadeath

  -RED WASP - Pain Squatters living in your attic

  -DEER TICK - Evil bloodsuckers

  -JUNE BUG - not poisonous, don’t care, it’s grippy lil’ feet are terrifying

• Grab the Creepie Crawlie through the cloth

• Pull cloth away from skin

• Light a shuck for the bathroom.

• Still holding Creepie Crawlie, remove all clothes and toss in basket

• Flee for Life

• DO NOT LET THE CRAWLIE GET TANGLED IN YOUR HAIR while REMOVING

(Do NOT skip this last step. Scorpions love Hair. Don’t ask me how I know.)

Even I am impressed with how fast I got undressed, one handed, while grasping the Creepie Crawlie in my Kung-Pao Death Grip (TM) - even my best Date Night Extravaganza has never beaten my time on this one. Chunking it in the laundry pile, I tossed on a bathrobe and skedaddled out of there, waiting for Evil to chase me...

but it didn’t.

After not screaming for a few moments, I eased back in, and braved the laundry basket enough to dig it out and see what it was; even I know not to leave Monsters in my dirty Laundry. To my surprise, it was not poisonous or bitey, but it was still terrifying, because I could have squished it accidentally against my bare skin, which would have been absolutely horrifying. I am amazed at my dexterity under pressure and I want accolades.

Then the lil’ Monster waved at me with its stubby lil’ legs and decided to be merciful, even as I hope it would be merciful to me if it were 50 feet tall and wearing a dress. I took a pic of the Monster and tucked it in a pickle jar on the table, where my Son declared it a ‘WoollyBear’.

“But isn’t it a moth or butterfly of some kind?” I wanted to envision it as it might be, not a critter crawling up my leg.

He shrugged. “Right now, it’s just a WoollyBear'“. He took it out to release it onto my rosebush by the porch, where it is currently eating the last of the roses the Goats DIDN’T get; like all things on The Ranch (TM) it has a habit of eating everything else -

but at least it didn’t eat me. In this world of poisonous stings and biting things, it was refreshing to find that the Monster crawling up my leg might someday be a beautiful Butterfly…

but right now, my Monster turned out to be just a WoollyBear - and that’s a wonderful thing.