All Around Animal (819 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.73 on 24 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Chronic (View user info) at 2008-08-18 13:21:29 EDT
I saw a gigantic pra(e?)ying mantis kill the biggest cicada I have ever seen. I saw a cicada-killer wasp a few weeks ago. I haven't seen a mantis around these parts in a long time. I remember seeing one on the boardwalk as a kid, snagging flies behind a garbage can. Someone told me that you can get fined by the government for killing a mantis. That made sense to me.
8 hours earlier, I saw the biggest dragonfly I have ever seen in my life, sitting on my sideview mirror. Hornets, built a nest behind my driver's side window a week ago. Sometimes when I drive somewhere and park, they leave the hive and circle the car. When I return to the car, they cruise back and crawl behind the mirror. I've found myself waiting for one or two of them more than once now. So I'm sitting there with the engine on, revving the engine as they float in front of the windshield. They're getting big. I'm not afraid of them. Part of me wonders if there is a queen back there. The dragonfly perched atop my sideview mirror was long and thick and only flew by ownership of 4 massive translucent wings. Someone told me that even though a dragonfly has 8 legs, it can't walk.
I saw a blue jay that was a foot tall. A hawk crushed a rabbit. A woodchuck stumbled around a corner and got blindsided by a rabbit in stride. They looked at one another with a great deal of surprise. A bat nearly flew into my head. A crane beak-speared a neighbor's expensive pond fish. A goose caused a car accident. A wild sparrow hovered for bread in my hand and took it piece by piece. A woodpecker defended a bird feeder from anyone that wanted a piece, for days. I see these things. I smiled at all of these things.
Though we have defeated the squirrels, there is one squirrel that I call "Ringer." He is from a few blocks away. He is the Olympian of squirrels. He is the only squirrel that can conquer our bird feeder. I am okay with it because he only shows up for about 1 day per month. I get the sense that he is on "rounds."
The woodpecker attacked a cardinal and some ground doves, even as they fled. A dozen starlings were overmatched and hovered in surrounding trees. Ringer knocked the entire feeder off the steel pole. When it fell, the starlings swarmed and the cardinal returned. The woodpecker attacked the squirrel, who frantically escaped. An eagle became overwhelmed by crows, until it landed in a towering ancient tree. It killed, injured, or terrified anything that came near it. It fought off 15 times its body mass in crows.
A few hours after the discussion that ended with, "Isn't there some kind of thing where you get fined if you ever kill a mantis?", I stepped out on my back porch to talk to my spider. It's enormous. I'm pretty sure it spends the day hidden behind a drainage gutter. Every night, it constructs a mighty web. The web is always elegant and magnificent. I watched him catch a very large moth. It was bigger than almost any moth I've ever seen. I saw it catch a giant mosquito a few nights ago. After being bit and stabbed, the mosquito bled red blood onto the web. It seeped through that portion of web and left a red stain. The web is never there in the morning. I talk to my spider at night.
Dogs I have met before invariably remember me and love me. Strange dogs approach me at random. People walking dogs get pulled towards me regularly. Some friends of mine breed domesticated rabbits for a fox in a crooked corner of old woodlands in the middle of Suburbia. I howl at the full moon every 28 days, even if it's raining.
Cats like me, but cats stare at my eyes. The friendliest cat I know, or have ever known, is a cold-blooded killer.
Domesticated birds fly to my shoulder. Snakes often strike their mice when I am about to enter, or have just entered, the room. Rodents in plastic balls flee from me. Dolphins have come too close. Wild dolphins are intimidating. I am afraid I will be attacked by a shark. Amphibians ignore me, though newts seem to be intrigued. Ferrets want to "play," and the lynx wants to "wrestle." Chipmunks were all but gone around here besides the ones in my old dead tree trunk. Their population has boomed and they scamper up beside me, even in other parts of town. I caught a school of fish between the parked boats at the dock, with a net. The fishermen were amazed. I said "they were ready."
I can't go to drive-thru zoos because of what happens. I make most animals at the regular zoo upset. I make some animals at the zoo very content. I never go near the glass at Sea World. I never go to Sea World. Fish jump onto my surfboard. Everyone looks. They flop off after a few seconds. Egrets land on the tip of my surfboard regularly. I fed French fries, out of my hand, to a one-legged seagull for 15 minutes this morning.
I want to teach a raccoon to roll joints. Or a monkey.
Girls are impressed.
User Reviews
Submitted by DonkeyOnTheEdge (user info) at 2008-08-20 20:32:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Unlike most of you, I am not a nut.
-- Homer Simpson
Homer's Odyssey
Submitted by Lib (user info) at 2008-08-19 19:30:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by skee (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:20:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
AND THIS -2 IS FOR MAKING ME MISSPELL ANIMAL!!
Submitted by skee (user info) at 2008-08-19 13:20:04 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
What the fuck is going on with these ANINAL post 2day???????? then u tried to make up for it by saying you want to teach it to roll joints....FUCK OFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Submitted by F.J.Bell (user info) at 2008-08-19 11:52:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2008-08-19 03:35:37 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The fifth, most of them live in the fifth precinct. oh you said precedent. Well, once, this guy took one home and got arrested because it is illegal to take a platypus home. It didn't actually set any precedent because taking platypuses (which is the correct plural btw although 'platypi' has long ago been accepted into the english language and therefore is a legal, 7 letter bonus-score scrabble word), but taking platypuses home was illegal way before someone took one home and got arrested. It only reinforced it was illegal.
i hope this helps.
Submitted by Chroniclysm (user info) at 2008-08-19 01:41:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Finally, an aussie speaks.
Apologies to other aussies who were ignored.
What is the precedent of domesticated platypuses (platypi?)?
Submitted by Danger_Ranger (user info) at 2008-08-18 21:35:23 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you..erm.......shouldn't really pick up platypuses.
Submitted by shadow (user info) at 2008-08-18 21:28:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
What on earth were you smoking?
Man, you sound just like Kevin. Too bad he's in Colorado or some such.
Submitted by beer-turtle (user info) at 2008-08-18 20:47:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I got into the groove and flow of this. Pretty cool.
Submitted by kgbpasha (user info) at 2008-08-18 17:28:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I once picked up a piece of straw to use
as a toothpick ala midwest style. I then
found out that the piece of straw was an animal.
Since then my plans to build my house from straw
have been altered.
Submitted by paranoiadestroya (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:58:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Bees attack wasps by clumping around them vibrating, causing enough heat through friction to boil the wasp dead
Submitted by messmind (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:58:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by myshit (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:36:00 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:21:34 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The friendliest cat I know, or have ever known, is a cold-blooded killer.
-------------------------------------------------
Isn't that an eternal truth?
Submitted by s0meb0dy (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:07:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
-2 for boring(for me at least) and annoying sentence structure.
+1 because you were high when you wrote it.
Submitted by FALLEN (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:06:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
you have to +2 a platopus
platapuss?
platopostumusses?
plato-puss-us-ies?
playdoughpuss?
phylodoughpoose?
hypopotmus-asuses?
hypothalimus?
i'll get back to you.
Submitted by Cyrus (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:06:01 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You have conquered the squirrels. They are evil incarnate. You da man.
Also, let me know how the racoon/monkey thing goes.
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2008-08-18 14:05:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Sounds like my house. I have all kinds of Nature going on around me, too.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-08-18 13:42:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Lovely. Although we should concrete over the entire earth and put all the animals in cages.
Feckin' nature.
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2008-08-18 13:35:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of my cats has had gas for the last 2 days.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-08-18 13:32:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
...or CAN they?
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-08-18 13:32:11 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
They cannot be trained to be excellent slippers, with just a few minute's skillful paring knife work.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2008-08-18 13:23:02 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
the jokers of the animal world