Friday, August 10, 2007

The Underbelly of Florida Life

We've been here about five weeks now. In that time I've seen about 800,000 lizards. They startled me at first, but I'm getting used to them. I'm even finding them a little bit cute. If I ever step on one, I will freak, but so far, they seem pretty adept at darting in and about my flip flops.

I have yet to see an alligator, but I'm waiting. I think my realtor thinks I'm crazy as I ask repeatedly about where they may be lurking. Everytime I go to the apartment swimming pool, I'm looking for them, thinking they may have crawled in. And truthfully, I ALWAYS look in the toilet before sitting down, because I think I heard they can crawl in there.

But lizards and alligators I knew would be part of my entrance into the sunshine state. I've been preparing for these encounters. I know to run in a zig zag pattern if an alligator is pursuing me and that they can only run about 3 miles per hour. I can run faster than that.

What I wasn't prepared for literally jumped out at me today. A FREAKIN' HUGE ASS BLACK SNAKE. We were walking back from the pool, and this huge, black thing jumped out of a bush, twisting and turning in mid-air. I screamed--and miraculously the worst that came out of my mouth was "Oh crap!" as I grabbed PB and RAN. We circled the whole building to avoid going back that way. I searched for someone working there so I could tell them what I saw and so they could go...I don't know what they could do. I think I need to go Google how to survive a snake attack.

1 comment:

MaNiC MoMMy™ said...

I lived in Tampa from the time I was born till 16. Lizards and cockroaches... Ewwwwww.

Oh, and the dang heat, not that it's very cool in Chicago right now!