Bugging Out

May 27, 2009



I have always been a bit squeamish when it comes to bugs and reptiles. I was the girl in grade school who couldn't sleep the night before Stan the Animal Man came for a visit. I hated the thought of one of his lizards crawling across my open palms. And don't get me started on the Hawaii episode of the Brady Bunch. I'm pretty sure I was scarred for life when Peter wakes up to find that tarantula smack in the middle of his chest. I have fond memories of my dad as my spider hero. Whenever my sister and I would find a four-legged creature, we would shriek at the top of our lungs for Daddy to come and do away with it. And when he wasn't home, we would flip a coin to see who would have to put a cup over the pest as a temporary solution until Super Dad would come home and be brave.

This went on for much of my adult life. In college, I had roommates to call out for help. After that, I had my big, brave husband who waged many a bug war in our first apartments. (Oh, so romantic!) But then, we had children and I officially became the adult and thus, by default, the designated "do-away-with-bug" person in the group. It started out slowly. On our first trip to Hawaii, my husband was at the gym when my son discovered a grasshopper-ish thing on the floor right where he was crawling. He screamed. Of course, I didn't want to teach my son to be afraid of bugs (do as I say not as I do, right?) so I calmly picked up my baby and with a magazine shooed the thing out onto the balcony. I remember comforting my son saying, "It's okay, it's okay," while inside, I was thinking, "We are so switching rooms. We are so never going outside." There were plenty more bug episodes similar to the above and with each one, I got just a little more courageous and even slightly better at the job. I accepted that I was the mom. I was supposed to make my child feel safe. And, really, my mother instinct was extremely helpful in pushing me past my fears especially once with an unusually large black beetle heading straight for my son's hand.

But then we moved to suburban Calabasas. Everyone raved about our land. How amazing it is that we live right up against the Santa Monica mountains. How wonderful not to have neighbors. Yeah, right? Maybe we don't have the can-I-borrow-some-sugar human variety of neighbor, but we definitely have "friends" living alongside us. First, there, are the coyotes. I knew about them going in, though, and so far they pretty much keep to themselves. Except during the night when you hear them doing a sort of victory chant after a successful kill. There are the rabbits (not the cute furry Easter bunny types) who eat my grass on a daily basis. The gophers who dig holes in my lawn seasonally. The aggressive squirrels and the super loud birds who seem to carry on heated conversations across the trees.

We moved here a few years ago in the winter so my first true battle was with the earwigs, aka pincher bugs. When it rains, they take shelter in my living room. My son is scared to death of these little guys so I have to constantly put on a brave face and scoop them up as if it's the most natural thing in the world. As spring descends and flowers begin to bloom, out come the very large stinker bugs. Despite my utter terror at the sight of them, I am a pro at sweeping them off the driveway and onto the street so my children can go back uninterrupted to their game of handball. Once, I even had to remove one from my son's sneaker. I'm in a sweat just remembering that moment but the point is, I did it. Dad wasn't home. So it was up to Mommy to take care of it.

As summer hits, however, the snakes and reptile families awaken. While I tolerate lizards, I have done everything in my power so that I never see one of those slithery suckers especially because there are rattle snakes among them. I have an underground fence that is the exact height reccommended. I have my bushes cut a few inches off the ground so there are no easy hiding places. And I have my children trained in snake awareness (compliments of many a googled website). Still, they are out there. I hear about them from my gardener, my pool man and even some neighbors at our park. Miraculously, I've never seen one in my vicinity. Sometimes, I think that maybe someone in the universe is watching out for me, realizing that I have been facing my fears front and center and that a-few-foot-rattler may simply be too much for me.

Now I know the picture above is not of a snake but come on, that is one nasty lizard. So let me tell you where I found him. I was alone with my toddler when I came down the stairs to find the not-so-little guy sunbathing in my dining room. We made eye contact and for a minute, I kept on going, thinking it must be a stuffed animal or rubber toy which is a very realistic assumption in my house. But then the thing moved, stretched out to inch himself a little more in the sun. The nerve? My first instinct was to freak out. In fact, I'm pretty sure I uttered some really bad words before collecting myself and realizing that I was the Mommy and when you are two and a half, mommies are there to make everything better and keep you safe. So I took a deep breath, ran and got the camera because I did want credit for facing up to such a fear (my husband was impressed by the way!) and then reached for a broom to gently scoot the lizard outside. I slammed the door, double-locked it and scrubbed my dining room floor--all the while attempting to maintain an air of calm and control. My daughter loves to tell the "silly" story about when there was a lizard in the house. And I guess the fact that it was so "silly" means I successfully faked my way through the terror inside of me.

It's going to be a long summer!