The Glamorous Writing Life: Girlie Squick Moment in the Shower Leads to Baby Opossum Inspiration

People often ask me where I get my inspiration. Here’s the true tale of today’s inspiration:

I normally don’t have a problem with creepy-crawlies. I like rats and mice, I’m fine with spiders, and I think bats are adorable. But I can’t deal with things that squish. Earthworms send me gibbering for cover, leeches petrify me, and maggots on a TV show make me blanch and the little hairs on my arms quiver. So when I realized the little smear of tan-orange on the shower door—which I initially thought was soap scum or mildew—had antennae and was oozing its merry way across the glass, I leaped, dripping wet, out of the shower and shrieked for the slumbering husband to save me.

To his credit, Matthew did indeed shamble, bleary-eyed and groggy, into the bathroom with shoe in hand. However, what really squicks me about wormy things is their squish. So I sent him away with another terrified shriek of, “Wrong! No! Not with that!”

So Matthew shuffled off with the horrifying shoe device and came back with an envelope, which he used to gently dislodged the slug and cart it outside to liberty and peace, away from the hysterical madwoman.

No longer in the proximity of the horrifying nightmare creature, I felt pretty silly. And also, in retrospect, I realized it was kinda cute—about the length of my fingertip, with little antennae nubbins and sporting a delicate pattern on its body. Made me curious what it was as well as how it had gotten into our shower.

“Must Google,” I thought.

But searching on “slug”+”Georgia” retrieves images of guns and bullets. (Erm, not touching that.) So I tried “little brown slug”+”indigenous to Georgia.”

Mistake.

I did indeed find images of little brown slugs. In Georgia. I also triggered a primal urge to stand on my desk with my skirts gathered around my knees (I’m wearing slacks, btw) and shriek.

So to cleanse my visual and emotional palette, I Googled something cute. Ergo, this baby opossum from babyanimalz.com:

Baby Possum 42 days

Word on the street is that people think opossums are scary. I think they’re adorable. And now I want to write a story about opossums. Possibly vanquishing evil slug monsters.

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2 Responses to The Glamorous Writing Life: Girlie Squick Moment in the Shower Leads to Baby Opossum Inspiration

  1. threeoutside says:

    I love possums, too!

  2. Eugie Foster says:

    :D!

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