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Jo Stubbings
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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.
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, co*ckroaches, 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 of stoic.
More. I reckon that living, as we do, among critters contributes hugely to our laid-back Aussie character. Yes, we might have moments of hysteria seeing a co*ckroach in the Cornflakes or having a huntsman crawl onto our shoulder (this happened to me once, and I’d rather not talk about it) but then we shake it off, so to speak, and kick the stone on down the road. It’s exposure therapy from birth. Like growing up with Vegemite that no one else in the world can stomach. When you’re exposed to something long enough, it simply reduces the fear/yuck/eek factor.
Bill Bryson vouches for our casual attitude towards critters in his book Down Under: “Naturally, they [Australians] play down the fact that every time you set your feet on the floor something is likely to jump out and seize an ankle. Thus my guidebook blandly observed that ‘only’ fourteen species of Australian snakes are seriously lethal …”
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My German penfriend, Frank, concurs. When he first visited Australia, we took him for a nice summer’s walk in the bush. Near the top of the hill, he spotted the front half of a blue-tongue sunning itself on a rock. “SCHLANGE! (snake!),” he shrieked and hot-footed it down the hill. He was nowhere in sight when my partner called after him, “It’s just a lizard, mate.”
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Fear. It’s all relative but I reckon we don’t so much fear for our health or mortality when we come across a scary creature in the home as we are (unpleasantly) surprised. Well, I wasn’t expecting you, dear rabies-carrying bat, to fly through the open window. And I wasn’t expecting you, rattus rattus, to leap out of the laundry basket. And enough with the darting and scuttling already. If you creatures were more sedentary, we’d get along so much better.
Non-fun fact. Which animal do you think is linked to the most deaths in Australia? The shark, the snake, the bee? Nay. The horse. According to a 2020 NCIS (National Coronial Information System) fact sheet covering the years 2001 to 2017, the horse contributed to almost one-third of animal-related deaths in Australia. Falling from a horse was the main contributor. Misadventure with bovines was second on the list, contributing to about 15 per cent of animal-related deaths.
Over the years, our family home has been a certified menace menagerie. We’ve had a duck and a possum fall down the chimney (not simultaneously), a wasp nest in a bedroom, a huntsman give birth to hundreds of adorable spiderettes and a long-horned beetle crawl across the face of a sleeping woman. For a while we hosted, in the bathroom at night, a magnificent leopard slug the size of my ring finger. I’d pick him up by his spongy sides and place him back in the shower recess. By morning, he’d have vanished into his secluded slugdom only to repeat his visit night after night. I’m convinced we bonded, Sluggy and I, and I won’t hear a word otherwise.
The most startling encounter with a creepy was years ago following dinner with a friend from Switzerland. Chocolates were the gift du jour and I’d happily stashed them in my bag, returned to my tiny flat and gone to bed. In the middle of the night came that crackly scratchy sound that at first you don’t believe you really heard. And then it crackles again and you do.
I switch on the light in time to see a mouse emerging from my bag. I scream. I stand on the bed. I take an Olympics-worthy long jump out of the bedroom into the living room. I ring the boyfriend who arrives with an empty ice cream container. And a grin like a Cheshire cat.
Jo Stubbings is a freelance writer and reviewer.
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