Marlin Perkins Where Are You?

Vague reference I know, but it is very appropriate for tonight.  I wasn't going to blog today since we are getting ready to go to the mountains tomorrow, but the last 20 minutes made it a necessity.  It all started with Melody walking down the hallway and stopping in her tracks and calling me.  This is normally followed with a little spider on the floor in front of her which she really really hates.  This time however, it was no ordinary spider, it was something about the size of a tarantula.  I don't know my spider species well, but this baby was impressive and I kid you not, the largest living spider I have seen outside of the zoo or a pet store.  See for yourself.

If this would have been Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom, and if I was Marlin Perkins, I would have sent Jim in to get him. (if you don't know Marlin Perkins, click here).

Anyways, after taking the required pictures (Tony, you need to take pictures before you squish them so people believe the size), I promptly squished him.  Yes there was a large amount of innards to be cleaned up.  So while I am consoling Melody, she looks up at the ceiling and sees a fast moving object.  Needless to say this did not help the situation much.  She tells me it went behind the door, so I slowly (yeah, by this time, I'm a little freaked out myself) open the door and behind it is a lizard.  Lukas was still up and Logan shot out of his room when he heard the commotion and immediately begged me to catch it.

I was not aware that lizards have afterburners, but this one did.  I proceeded to chase him up and down the walls of the hallway until I cornered him and pinned him to the wall with the flyswatter and then got him into a container much to the delight of the boys.  What we didn't notice was that he had pulled the old lizard trick of dropping its tail off.  What basically happens is that a lizard in distress, will drop its tail off just behind its back legs, and it continues to squirm so the predator goes for the tail while the lizard takes off to live another day.  So when we got back inside after letting the lizard go, there on the floor was a dismembered tail squirming away on the floor like a worm.

Sorry, no pictures of the lizard or the tail because it was all a blur.  All said, I will be doing a thorough inspection of the bedrooms before we go to bed tonight just in case spiderzilla has some relatives who are out for revenge.

Be back Monday.