At the age of about eight, my stepsons posed the darndest questions. “What would you rather be eaten by – a whale or a snake?” “Neither,” I’d say, killing all the fun. “Nah, you’ve gotta choose! Would you rather eat a maggot sandwich or a cicada pie? .
.. Who would you rather be locked in a bedroom with? A dingo or a python?” (Idris Elba, I want to say.
) This game went on for years, but it did get me thinking. Hello possum! These kinds of things really happen. Or some of them at least.
One does eat fried scorpion in China, after all. And one does meet scaly intruders in the dark. I make a mental list of the creatures you could feasibly find in your home in Australia – houseflies, blowies, mosquitoes, wasps, slugs, cockroaches, daddy long legs, huntsman spiders, redbacks, funnel-web spiders, geckos, frogs, lizards, snakes, birds, bats.
And then the four-legged variety – mice and rats and possums. Maybe wombats in rural areas. It’s a wonder we get by at all.
The list is extensive but by no means exhaustive. I’m wondering if the Australian home is in fact the most creature-visited on the planet. I just can’t imagine homes in a country like Norway, for example, being so wildly inhabited.
Or a lizard turning up in a London terrace (unless it was trafficked inside someone’s sock). Almost every Aussie has a creature-in-the-home story – and though we might be spooked by beastly guests, we’re rarely rocked by the possibility. Ultimately, we’re kind o.