Part 1: Sidney & The Thing That Lives Under My Tub

Just in case you think I've lost my mind (or found it, depending on your take on the content of my Miscellog blog), fear not. This is just a break for something a little different...

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Those of you who know that I have a slug living in the house will probably not be too surprised to find that I have a Thing That Lives Under My Tub, the latter being the bathtub in my bathroom, as opposed to the bathtub in the guest bathroom, which is known as Mikey's bathroom.

The Slug.










For those who don't know about the slug, I suppose I should explain.The slug and The Thing exist independently of me. They are not mine, in the sense that intentionally acquired pets belong to someone. They are not mine in the sense of unintentionally acquired pets belong to someone (as in, "Oh, look, honey, this cat has adopted us" or "Look what followed me home, mommy!").


The slug and The Thing are not pets at all. They are more like….co-inhabitants who occupy spaces I generally do not, or do so only in passing.

The slug, I suppose, spends her days (her, for I find myself calling the hermaphroditic mollusk Slugette, not to be confused with Sluggo, my blue-tongue skink) living somewhere in the wall behind the guest bathroom cabinet, or perhaps on or under the ground under the bathroom, sliming her way back and forth to her favorite indoor cruising ground, the hallway and den in my house.


Sluggo, my cuddly hypomelanistic blue-tongue skink








The slug Slugette and I encounter one another in the hallway every 3-5 evenings or so during all but the coldest times of the year. Sometimes, when I stay up later than usual, I will come across her in the den. I now make it a point to turn on lights to light up the den/hallway junction, and the hallway into my bedroom, so that I don't inadvertently terminate her nocturnal indoor ramblings.

Afraid that any future tenants here may not be so accommodating to her love of the open, uh, carpet, I suppose I shall have to take her with me when I eventually move, and trust that she will find the new place amenable to her needs and likes.


The Thing That Lives Under the Tub

Over the past 13 years, for very brief times, sometimes during the day, sometimes at night, I hear a scratching sound coming from my bathtub. Now, for most of those years, the odds were that the scratching sounds were being made by one or more green iguanas.

Iguanas get bathed daily most of the time, and are quite able to get in and out of the tubs themselves. But sometimes they get a little needy in the attention department, and will scratch feebly and pathetically on the tub, their way of saying "I'm a poor widdle igwana who can't get out of the tub please come help me before I slide down the draaaaaaaaaain."

To understand the ludicrousness of this possibility, you must understand that the worst offender in this category is Mike, all 50 inches from snout to tail-tip and 21 pounds of him. Mike is a robust 7 year old Cyclura iguana (an endangered genus whose species are barely surviving on a relative handful of Cayman islands), with an abdominal girth of 24 inches when he is sprawled out basking, sleeping or bathing. So, there is absolutely no danger of his sliding down the drain and no way he cannot get into or out of the tub on his own. There is, however, every danger of his wearing away the porcelain as he scratches pathetically, not to speak of annoyingly, to have me carry him back to the ig room, or scratching imperially to summon me to run more water for him. Now, if not sooner.

(Not, y'know, that I reinforce the efficacy of his behaviors by actually going in there and picking him up in a warm towel to carry him back to the ig room, or run more water for him. Nope, not me!)

When I had a dozen or more iguanas here, a couple of them would climb into the bathtub outside of regular bath hours, either in hopes of getting another bath (a solo soak - luxury!), or just to climb into the tub to get away from the madding crowd for a bit.

But there were times during the years when there was scratching that was not generated by iguanas, bearded dragons, blue-tongue skinks, or assorted chelonians. By nothing, in fact residing inside the house.

The air space under the house is ventilated (theoretically) by small openings cut into the building that are covered by sturdy wire mesh.

All but one of the openings is in fact so covered. The one that isn't has provided access, according to the neighborhood kids who have had the opportunity to observe such access, to the rabbit who escaped from his pen next door, a "rat that was THIS biiiiig!" the occasional skunk and, presumably, opossums, cats, and a variety of rodents.

One of the rabbit kids tried to block it by placing a piece of wood in front of it, braced by a rock, but as you can see, Things are clever in getting around obstacles.

The visitor could be heard during the days, usually, for short periods of time, from a few hours to a day or two. Then, gone, with no alien scratching noises heard for months, sometimes years. The last time there was any scratching was last winter, 2004-05.

And so silence reigned, until about a month ago, when The Thing moved in around 4 AM one morning. At first, I thought it might be a cat, because around 1 AM one night (morning) (whatever), there were two Things, either fighting or mating. The squalling and yowling made me think cat. But I've never heard the vocalizations made by mating skunks or opossums, or raccoons, for that matter, so it might have been any of those. Or, it could have been a cat encountering an opossum under the tub, with the two of them discussing matters less than civilly.

In the weeks since then, however, I have come to believe that The Thing is a nocturnal critter since the scratching and shifting-around noises happen throughout the daytime hours. During the evening hours, the tub is silent. Around 4 AM (I can pretty near set my clock by it), The Thing returns and makes him/herself comfy wherever the hell it is that s/he hangs out under there.

I have noted that when we have several warm days in a row during which it does not rain and the ground and trees have had a chance to dry out a bit and warm up, The Thing is absent, with no noises or movement heard during the days or nights. Once it starts raining again, The Thing comes back.

Given the fact that I see the usual clowder of feral cats, especially the two known as Gray Cat and Scairdy Cat moving around in my returning-to-wilderness backyard during the daylight hours while The Thing is grooming itself under The Tub, I have come to the conclusion that The Thing is most likely an opossum.

Gray Cat

Scairdy Cat















Read Part 2 and Part 3