Kafka-esque

I told Axel this story this morning and he couldn't stop laughing so that tells me I should post it here. You probably shouldn't read it if worms or beetles squick you out.

Background Info #1
The thing about having a beardie as a pet is that they like to eat meat. They like it a lot, and sometimes trying to get them to eat anything else is like having a toddler who hates vegetables. Many people feed them crickets, but I have enough experience with those to not want them in the house. There is always one that gets out and hides in your walls and chirps chirps chirps until you are losing your shit trying to find it. A field full of crickets is soothing and romantic. A single cricket is maddening.

So we feed him worms. He gets hornworms or silkworms if we've just been to the pet supply store but they don't seem to survive long in captivity so mealworms are the staple. We always have a big plastic pot of them in the house. We put a few in his food dish and he dives in head first, scattering them everywhere. Then he crunches up as many as he wants and leaves the rest for us to scoop up and throw back into the container.

So the thing is, every once in a while some will get away. And while mealworms won't go through metamorphosis when they're in the pot with all the other worms - something about their sisters eating them while they are in the chrysalis - they will as soon as they can get some privacy. So every once in a while we will see a big black beetle just sauntering through the house. No biggie, we scoop it up and throw it into Carlin's food bowl and he loves them. He considers them a special treat.

Background Info #2
I am not the tidiest of people a massive slob and sometimes when I am crawling into bed I just drop my clothes onto the floor. If I know I'm going to spend the next day getting filthy and sweaty in the basement or yard I will put my dirty clothes back on in the morning and then change into fresh clothes once I've finished up the work for the day and had a shower.

So y'all know where this is going, right?

I get up, I pull dirty clothes on because I'm going to be doing something that involves the basement and dust. I go downstairs to grab coffee. The phone rings, it's my mother. I'm talking to her and my leg itches or tickles or something, so I just absently scratch at it.

I figure out what's causing the itch when it bites me.

Cue me hopping around on one leg yelling "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" while trying to get my pants off while simultaneously trying to wedge the phone under my chin so I can use both hands. I have no idea why I didn't put down the phone - my only excuse is that I hadn't finished my coffee yet and "there is a beetle in my pants" had somehow short-circuited the rest of my thinking functions. Meanwhile my mother is hearing me shouting and crashing into things and she's yelling my name because she's convinced I'm having a stroke right there on the phone with her.

I finally get my pants down far enough to flip the beetle out. Then I spend the next five minutes sitting on the phone with my pants around my ankles because I am trying to convince my mother not to call 911 and no the fact that I can't stop laughing is not because I have suffered irreparable brain injury.

So the moral of the story kids, is always check your pants before you put them on in the morning. I do.