Earlier this week, Hayden and I were standing outside of the bedrooms chatting. No one else was home and we heard something down the hall in the living room. We almost always attribute things like this to one of the cats. Until we realized they were ALL staring off down the hallway, wondering what that sound was too.
My family and friends got a big kick out of that. Me and Hayden, not so much. It also triggered another memory of my pets acting strange. This happens quite often at our house, by the way.
It was June of 2006. I know this because it was the day before we left to visit with Denton’s parents that summer. We had just gotten two new kittens for the kids. Denton worked terrible hours back then and he had left for work about 4:30 AM. Hayden was out of school so we didn’t need to be up before daylight ourselves.
When I did wake up, the sun was streaming into the bedroom and I realized that I was hearing a strange clicking sound. I looked at the foot of the bed where the kittens usually slept and both of them were staring up at the ceiling fan of the bedroom. Intently. Completely focused. Even when I called their names they wouldn’t look away. It was very odd to say the least. We had no attic in our house in the Kingdom, it was just the roof, the insulation and then the ceilings inside the house.
After a few minutes the weird clicking stopped and the kittens came out of their trance and started acting like normal psychopathic cats. You know, attacking people from out of the blue, demanding food from their human slaves, fighting amongst themselves, etc. We went about our day, preparing to leave for Florida the next morning.
We went to bed early that night so we could get an early start the next day. Denton and I had been asleep about three hours when I felt something crawling on me. Well. In complete darkness – because who can sleep if it’s not completely dark – I got out of bed and turned on the walk-in closet light that was next to my side of the bed. Flipped back the covers…..and almost had a heart attack. I’ll show you a photo of what was crawling up my leg to devour me.
Yeah. I know. Seriously. I thought I was going to die. Imagine a nickel beside it. That is not an exaggeration. That’s how big this thing was. A scarab beetle.
I quickly flipped the covers back over it, because you know – that will surely keep this thing contained. Then, I ran around the foot of the bed to Denton’s side, where I would surely be safe and shook him awake. Denton!! Wake up!! There’s a giant creeping thing in the bed with us!!
Now keep in mind that in the first tender years of our marriage Denton believed that I overreacted to things. Ahem. Maybe because back then I did have a tendency to do just that upon occasion. But, in my defense, he is also the man who told me at 5:15 in the morning “No, go back to bed, your water hasn’t broken, Liva isn’t due for another three weeks”, when in fact, YES, my water had indeed broken and she was born at exactly 7:30 AM that very same morning. So there is that to consider.
When I finally convinced him that there was something to investigate and he got out of the bed, he whipped back the covers to show me that there was nothing there so that he could please for the love of all that is holy go back to sleep – scream! Yep, it was still there. Denton is always calm. In the face of bears, yes but that’s another story, angry men with guns, another story, horrible life-changing events, another story, smash his thumb to oblivion and be transported to the ER by ambulance, another story, with all of these things, he is always calm. He wasn’t very calm that night, standing beside the bed, staring at this hideous, THING, crawling around in our bedcovers.
He quickly flipped the covers back over it – because that will contain it for sure! – and we stood there staring at each other. I honestly cannot remember how he got that thing out of our bed that night. What I do remember is that he took it outside and threw it into the yard beyond the deck and then of course Sampson got ahold of it and played with it until it died.
So what did we learn?
- Obviously, scarab beetles have some magic way of entering ones home through ceiling fans. Denton still doesn’t believe that’s how it got in, but really!?! I wake up to a strange sound that morning, the kittens are mesmerized, and that night this horror-show winds up in our bed. Coincidence? I. don’t. think. so.
Second, I didn’t know that we had beetles that large in Virginia. According to National Geographic, they can get up to 6.7 inches! And they can live anywhere on the planet except the oceans and Antarctica. Gahhh! If we had already been to Florida and back, I would have sworn that we brought it with us. Just like the scorpion in my hairbrush, alas another story for later.
Thirdly, take pictures of everything, Tracie!! I don’t know why we didn’t think to take a photo. Oh wait. Yes, I do. There was a freaking BEETLE the size of my fist in my BED!! That’s why, no photo.
IV. When you hear a weird sound in your house and your animals are looking around like aliens are invading….they just might be. Just don’t hide under the covers unless you check them. Thoroughly.
Weird things like this seem to happen at our house quite regularly. Do things like this happen to you? Inquiring minds want to know.