God-Awful Encounters with Nature That I Could Do Without

Last night I was sitting on the front porch talking on the phone when I was startled by a noise off to the side. I thought at first that the source of the rustling sound was from a cat in the plants but soon realized that no cat I have ever seen has a long snout like the one I was confronted with. I was face to face with an enormous opossum. The opossum didn’t seem terribly thrilled to see me either and quickly took off running giving me a close-up view of it’s equally scary looking hind quarters. Although I was shocked by seeing this creature so close to my feet, I managed to restrain myself and not scream.

You would think that this would be enough for me and I would have had the good sense to stay in the house. Nope, not me. So a little while later I decided that I needed to go out to the car and retrieve something that I had left there earlier in the day. Something that could have easily waited until the next day when there was daylight. You know, like what a sensible person might do.

I was walking on the sidewalk that leads to the driveway when I walked face first into a gigantic spider web. This was not the normal little wispy web that I frequently see around the house. This was the industrial version of the spider web that I couldn’t just wipe off. Add in the fact that I also felt something crawling on my head. Then I must have decided that since I didn't feel it anymore it must be inside my shirt. I think maybe you could understand that I was this close to ripping off my clothes in the driveway. There was much frantic flailing as I attempted to rid myself of the web and the bug. Yet I still somehow managed to choke back the blood-curdling scream that I felt building up. As if on some level I knew I might soon have to be naked in my driveway. It turns out that when I am choking back a blood curdling scream the noise that does come out is a semi-hysterical grunt sounding like, “Eh! Eh! Eh!”