Some of my most famous wildlife fiascos haha

What is it with me and wild life anyway. I have the funniest things happen to me all the time!! And the things that happen really ONLY happen to me! Lots of people wouldn't even believe the stories I tell if they didn't see it! But they are true!! I think that God just loves to keep my life exciting and He knows I love to tell stories so He gives me things to laugh about all the time!!



Some of my most famous stories are as follows. And I will do the shortened versions. Reading them, they are not as funny as when I can do the impersonations... I enjoy telling stories in person!


# 1 Randi & The Lizard
In 2004 I believe it was, Brandon and I were doing something outside at the house at Solera. The house on Solera Drive was where Donna J and I were roommates during college (and we also had 2 Lisa's come through as roommates, a Jenny and an Amber over our years there). So anyway... Brandon and I were getting something out of the storage closet, and we have these little green lizards everywhere down here on the coast of North Carolina. It's funny - but I am not scared of them, we've had them in the house, in my own bedroom even and they don't scare me. Yet snakes petrify me.... I can't quite figure out why. Lizards are just like them except with legs and a lot smaller... so I guess that's why.. anything without legs like that is just...wrong. Snakes are just ... GROSS, devilish!! but I digress again....

All of a sudden this lizard runs up the pants of my jeans (the outside though)!! and I am just freaking out... I am shaking my behind around looking like Beyonce with too much caffeine and I keep yelling Brandon Brandon is it off!!? is it off!! and He keeps saying it's gone it's gone and he is just CRACKING UP!.... Now, it's one thing if a lizard touches me and jumps off...that's fine I would have shrieked and that's it.... but the feeling of having something ON ME that won't come off brings me to another level of hysteria. So I bend down to look where I thought it was (it was right on my behind but I couldn't see it when looking over my shoulder) .... and I see this tail thing hanging down from the back of my pants and I just am losing my mind. "AHHH It's still there, Brandon get it off please please please.. somebody help me" and finally I realize the man of my dreams isn't going to rescue me during this one, he's having too much fun... so I grab for the "tail" and it wasn't a tail after all!! It was actually just a huge string hanging from my jeans that had tears, rips and threads everywhere.....So Brandon was right..... the lizard jumped off of me when he felt that first booty shake 2 minutes ago hahaha. So I was in hysterics for over 2 minutes for nothing. So Brandon got to experience the first of the many times he would see me freak out... and months later he would still propose to me after all that!

# 2 Randi & "The Bugs"
I have so many stories about cockroaches & grasshoppers... I don't even know which to tell. Down here, in the South, they call cockroaches..."water bugs". These water bugs, they look exactly like the grasshoppers look too... but to me I just label them all cockroaches so I won't feel bad killing it. Actually I have come to label everything bigger than a fly... a "bug". The day of my wedding was a great foreshadowing of what my life would bring the first 2 years of marriage. We had taken pictures in the gardens outside of the reception hall and went in to be introduced... we had a slideshow, toasts, dancing and then towards the END of the night Brandon took off my garter..... when I lifted up my dress, I thought I caught a glimpse of something on my crinolin (how in the world do you spell that?).. the fluffy stuff to make your dress float around. I keep investigating as everybody is watching Brandon prepare to take off the garter... and I peel back one layer, 2 layers and on that 3rd layer is something that looks like a cockroach!! That's when the "bug" label started.. "AHHH A bug!!"... I flicked it off me, it landed on brandon's shoulder and then I flicked it off him. It landed near my mother in law and she stepped on it inconspicuously yet victoriously! Everything happened so fast that nobody even noticed except the 3 of us and the photographer who probably took 200 pictures in 10 seconds haha. All the snapping made his camera go haywire so we have no pictures of the sceneexcept these 2 (blogger isn't uploading pics right now):

But we did get it on video though!! Then on our honeymoon... we went to New Orleans, went on a cruise to Mexico, came back to New Orleans and stayed there for a night. and we played in this really kinda sketchy place... Brandon said that after I went asleep, he saw a cockroach the size of a mouse and didn't sleep at ALL. He didn't wake me because he knew I'd go to the airport and wait for our plane the next afternoon rather than stay there any longer.... smart guy. He didn't tell me about that bug until months later.

So anyway, for the next 1.5 years after our wedding, the bugs would become a pretty big part of my life. We lived in a house that Brandon rented during his bachelor college years. It was just that... a dirty, ole bachelor pad that I definitely (with MomMom's help) made into a home and we really liked it... but it was still just old, and needed some TLC. It was the home Raymond came home to, and we have so many great memories there. BUT it had a problem...many problems really... the biggest one being that the bathroom needed to be completely gutted.. and the landlord just wanted to sell the house, so was waiting until we found a place to buy so he could sell it and be done with it! So nothing was ever fixed....so the tub dripped, the pipes were all cracked and so the house had a pool of water under it ALL the time.. more like a lake! Hence.. the 'water bugs' that came up through the drains into the house. I always associated cockroaches with cleanliness but I cleaned ALL the time and did everything I could... these bugs were here to stay.

Soooo in that house, whenever I was having a REALLY bad day... without a doubt, every single time.. a bug made an appearance where it wasn't wanted. The first bug was the week I found out I was pregnant! I didn't find out I was pregnant until I was about 14 - 15 weeks along! and I was shocked! I was on the pill! So needless to say... I was going through some emotions... and I was tired and sick. One day, I was just a mess.. more than usual.... and I was screaming, if one more thing happens, that's it! I am done. I am about to burst! All I wanted to do was to be able to throw up in peace and all of a sudden laying with my head against my favorite accessory at the time.. the toilet... I feel like somebody's watching me.. I turn to the toilet paper next to me.. and there is a HUGE HUGE HUGE bug staring at me! So I did burst.. and ALL of my emotions, fears, anger, frustration, sickness was taken out on that thing.

The next 6 months would continue in that same pattern. When I was having a REALLY bad day, God would NEVER fail to give me a bug to be able to beat the living snot out of to get out my frustrations. Some days I would spend whole days playing games with these things trying to corner them, find them, and kill them. I would play the waiting game with them for minutes on end not moving until I saw it come out of the place I saw it go in.

God knew what He was doing... I would have rathered it be the little bugs instead of Brandon that I flipped out on. And now I appreciate this new home we have SOO much more! I mean.. it doesn't have bugs (INSIDE at least!)... it has grounded electricity.... and a washer and dryer INSIDE! hahaha I am so thankful for our first year of marriage. It taught me a lot of patience, taught me new ways to direct my emotions and it taught me to appreciate the little things!

# 3 Randi & The Frog
I have so many other "bug" stories.. but I'll skip those for now. Fast forward to about a month ago. Brandon, Raymond and I were spending the night down at the in laws house at Carolina Beach. Raymond woke in the middle of the night and it was FREEZING... the thermostat had broken or something but it was FREEZING and I didn't have any warmer clothes for him. I didn't feel like finding the thermostat or extra blankets and I didn't have any other options... so I just left at like 3 o clock in the morning and drove home so Raymond could sleep in his own crib haha. I knew that he'd need to sleep late after being up in the night.. and I knew that wouldn'e be possible because they would all be up early there... and I didn't want him to get woken up -- we know Raymond.. he loves and needs his sleep!

so I just left, and told Brandon I'd be back in the morning after Raymond had had enough sleep! As I'm driving down the road 3 am.... all of a sudden I feel this slimy hard thing on my right side of my NECK!... In the dark I grab it and fling it across the car. Trying to stay on the road, I turn on any lights I can to figure out what the heck it was! I assumed it was a 'bug'.... after all I had had a pretty bad day. When I turn on the light I see a brown FROG on the passenger door where I flung it. At this point, Raymond is looking at me like what in the WORLD is going ON!! You make me stay in this freezing place, then you wake me up and put me in the car, then you scream and swerve all over the place.... I don't get it!

I'm like okay okay I can do this... I just need to find a place to pull over. so I see the McD's up ahead and head that way. All of a sudden the frog jumps onto the passenger seat and is just staring at me..... and I was like "OH no you didn't frog... you listen to me! You are not going to jump back over here, you understand me".... and I used all the threatening language I could come up with..... well he listened! I will never forgot those eyes staring at me though -- just daring to jump over to me again.... so I FLY into the McD's parking lot. Fling open my door, grab the nearest stick and go to the passenger door. I somehow was able to maneuver him out and finally victory once again!! Randi wins vs. wildlife! I do a little victory dance in the parking lot.... meanwhile all the partiers with their McD's munchies and late night workers in McD's are wondering what I'm on... and so I just wave and get back in the car and go home.

I really do think that God gives me these wildlife adventures when I'm having a bad day or when I'm being negative, etc. to give me a laugh. To say, lighten up Randi... or to teach me a lesson.. like my fly post from last month. God is so cooler than I could ever explain

Life is fun! :) Go live it! :)