God, I couldn’t even type that without gagging. Okay, clearly I don’t miss rats and mice. As many of you know, I was TORTURED by a five-and-a-half-year standoff with the rodent population of Baltimore. I have maimed, suffocated, trapped, drowned, run over, and poisoned at least 30 disgusting but freakishly intelligent (I’m not kidding…I swear Baltimore’s Darwinian Uber-Species was curing cancer during its break from torturing me) rats and mice during my lifetime. Don’t judge me—it was killed or be killed.
Anyway, rats and mice are a formidable opponent and they took years off my life in stress and emotional turmoil. But at least they were normal, urban creatures.
Here in London, we have foxes. You know, those fuzzy, allegedly cunning, orange and white critters with the bushy tails? This might not come as a surprise to those of you familiar with the whole concept of urban foxes, but to me, this information seemed like a biological absurdity akin to say, fish living in a tree, or me living in the country.
Alex had told me that the urban foxes were "the size of a lab.” Picturing this creature,
I was obviously terrified. What kind of big-ass Old Yeller-style foxes skulk—can labs even skulk? No, amble—around dense urban areas in the middle of the night? How do these ecological freakshows even find a place big enough to hide during the day? The whole thing was truly mystifying to me, but Alex insisted.
On Friday night, I finally saw my first urban fox, and I’m happy to report that this elusive London nocturnal is not the size of Old Yeller, but rather is the size of well, a fox. When I promptly pointed out to Alex that it was much smaller that I’d anticipated based on his description, he laughed and said, “Oh you thought I meant a labrador retriever. No, I said a lab.” Since the fox I saw was much smaller than any laboratory I’ve ever seen as well, I still have no idea what he was talking about. But then again, I'm not science-y.
Anyway, my point in all of this is not about the animal itself, which is kind of cute in a way, and certainly far more desirable than a rodent, but instead is about the sounds they make. Oh. My. God. I only ever heard it one night, but suffice it to say that their “screams” sound like someone being tortured in the streets. That’s some scary Clockwork-Orange sh*t for those city dwellers forced to lie in their beds and listen to it.
Which brings me to another weird London-based animal that I only just got introduced to on Monday night: the blackbird. It makes midnight mating sounds that emulate a car alarm. I guess I’m just wondering one thing: Were there not enough sounds to hand out when civilization was being created to prevent this sort of mix up from occurring? I’m just waiting to discover the urban elephant that makes noises like a police siren or the rare, city-dwelling armadillo who sounds like a drunken domestic dispute.
Anyway, rats and mice are a formidable opponent and they took years off my life in stress and emotional turmoil. But at least they were normal, urban creatures.
Here in London, we have foxes. You know, those fuzzy, allegedly cunning, orange and white critters with the bushy tails? This might not come as a surprise to those of you familiar with the whole concept of urban foxes, but to me, this information seemed like a biological absurdity akin to say, fish living in a tree, or me living in the country.
Alex had told me that the urban foxes were "the size of a lab.” Picturing this creature,
I was obviously terrified. What kind of big-ass Old Yeller-style foxes skulk—can labs even skulk? No, amble—around dense urban areas in the middle of the night? How do these ecological freakshows even find a place big enough to hide during the day? The whole thing was truly mystifying to me, but Alex insisted.
On Friday night, I finally saw my first urban fox, and I’m happy to report that this elusive London nocturnal is not the size of Old Yeller, but rather is the size of well, a fox. When I promptly pointed out to Alex that it was much smaller that I’d anticipated based on his description, he laughed and said, “Oh you thought I meant a labrador retriever. No, I said a lab.” Since the fox I saw was much smaller than any laboratory I’ve ever seen as well, I still have no idea what he was talking about. But then again, I'm not science-y.
Anyway, my point in all of this is not about the animal itself, which is kind of cute in a way, and certainly far more desirable than a rodent, but instead is about the sounds they make. Oh. My. God. I only ever heard it one night, but suffice it to say that their “screams” sound like someone being tortured in the streets. That’s some scary Clockwork-Orange sh*t for those city dwellers forced to lie in their beds and listen to it.
Which brings me to another weird London-based animal that I only just got introduced to on Monday night: the blackbird. It makes midnight mating sounds that emulate a car alarm. I guess I’m just wondering one thing: Were there not enough sounds to hand out when civilization was being created to prevent this sort of mix up from occurring? I’m just waiting to discover the urban elephant that makes noises like a police siren or the rare, city-dwelling armadillo who sounds like a drunken domestic dispute.
4 comments:
There must be a few city-dwelling armadillos that live in the condo above mine then, because they sound just like a drunken domestic dispute three times a week.
In college, a possum used lurk in the shadows of our off campus housing!
I can't imagine you miss the preternaturally smart racoons that blanketed the Chicago suburbs. The ones in our neighborhood mastered unhooking bungee cords securing garbage cans and, I suspect, DNA mapping.
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