Ceiling turtles. Ha! What a ridiculous concept. The product of a fevered imagination combined with exposure to high levels of solvent fumes.
Yes, I was skeptical when I first heard of ceiling turtles.
And then my home suffered an infestation.
Don’t let the myths about how gentle and lettuce-loving they are fool you – they’re killers. Demon-spawned, ginger-hair hating killers.
The exterminators tented the house, but the entire city had been evacuated until this Testudines terror has been completely eliminated.
We’re living in a hotel a hundred miles away from the epicenter right now. Minimum safe distance is reportedly fifty miles, but with a family to worry about, I’m playing it safe.
You wouldn’t believe the cost to rid yourself of these raptor-like reptiles. I didn’t. I had to lose a finger before I was willing to pay such an exorbitant fee to an exterminator.
Here’s hoping the Federal declaration of an emergency comes through.
Don’t believe me, eh? Think ceiling turtles are mythological malarkey, eh? Wondering if I might be Canadian with all the ehs, eh? Well, before I realized how dangerous they were, I foolishly stuck around long enough to take some pictures.
Even now, safe under the thin, soiled blankets of my hotel bed, I shudder at my narrow escape.
Photographic proof the Chelonian creepers exist (peruse at your peril!):
While preferring the heated indoors, they will also set up nests in unheated, outdoor sheds.
They prefer well-lit spaces, as they hunt primarily by eyesight.
This one's hiding in the most terrifying place of all - the children's play room!
Ask me now if I regret buying a house next to both a turtle habitat and a nuclear test site, and I would answer yes. 20/20 hindsight and all that. But how could I possibly have known back then when I was signing the loan papers that a home next to a turtle habitat and a nuclear test site could be so dangerous?
How, I ask you! How?
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ian m dudley 