About ten minutes after we walked into our house as the new owners, we discovered a lizard crawling around in the front room. We quickly scooped it up and released it in the yard.

The next night, the bird came to our backyard to die.

Every day leads to the discovery of at LEAST four spiders. I don’t do well with spiders, but I have done (in my opinion) an amazing job of calmly, ever so slightly raising my voice to beckon Mike to get rid of the bigger ones. I don’t want to pass my documented arachnophobia onto Annabel. The smaller spiders I calmly introduce to the hose attachment on my vacuum.

On Saturday, we had people over. A few guys were helping move things around in the playroom while I was in the kitchen. I heard someone say, “Hey Mike, check out what’s crawling around in the playroom!” I calmly hollered from behind the sink, “It better not be a spider. It better be another lizard!”

It wasn’t either. It was a MOTHER CHUCKING BABY SCORPION. It had been hiding underneath a bin of toys and it “came out to play” after the bin had been moved.

To say I freaked out would be an UNDERSTATEMENT. I wanted to light the house on fire. I couldn’t stop imaging Annie and Rigby playing out there and getting stung. The problem with spider bites and insect stings is you almost never see the actual bug. So if Annie had been cruising around the house, crying and stuff, I would have chalked it up to Typical Annie Dramatics. Just the other day she was going, “Oh, my FOOT!” She’d point at one foot, then at the other. No consistency with that kid.

…I’m starting to wonder if it had already stung her. Except I looked at both her feet and saw no marks. …Crap.

Seriously, why is burning the house down not an option?

Unsurprisingly, Mike and my parents are ‘meh’ about the whole thing. I texted my dad after the discovery and he wrote back, “Yeah, you can expect those, and maybe some snakes and tarantulas.” WHAT THE HELL DAD. My mom said, “Where’s the baby’s mom?” WHAT THE HELL MOM. And Mike said, “Great, one more bug you won’t go near.” You’re damn right, Mike.

I guess this is what happens when you buy a house that stood vacant for a year. The tiny creatures reclaimed their land! The birds and lizards can stay. The bugs need to get the hell out, unless they want to contribute to the mortgage.