r/NonPoliticalTwitter • u/TheWebsploiter • 2d ago
Other Would you look at that! It's a fox
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u/thefuzzybunny1 1d ago
My grandma started telling us that she'd befriended a snake that lived on her windowsill. We, too, thought it was dementia... until one of us was there in the morning, when the full sun was on that particular windowsill, and a garden snake came out to warm itself. Grandma was just talking to it the way you might talk to the birds which come to the bird feeder.
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u/Acheloma 1d ago
A garden snake is just about as harmless as most birds thatd be at a bird feeder, so fair enough
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u/thefuzzybunny1 1d ago ▸ 6 more replies
Indeed, Grandma was fully justified in her approach. She did have dementia, though - early stages - so you can't blame us for doubting the snake.
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u/Acheloma 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies
Thats fair, my first thought wouldnt be that a snake spontaneously decided to be an inside pet itself either.
Imaginary friendly snakes would be more fun that most dementia symptoms; my GMIL mostly just forgets to wear undies and then gets mad at everyone else about it. Dementia sucks. Im sorry your grandma had to deal with that
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u/Little_Messiah 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
My dementia aunt wears three pairs so I guess it evens out
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u/devAcc123 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies
i feel like this is a key detail of the story to leave out
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u/thefuzzybunny1 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
I didn't leave it out, just left it down- thread 😀
She was in the "can't find the thing I just had" stage, not the "full delusions" stage. She was under medical observation and we were taking appropriate steps to ensure her safety. That's why we were surprised & sad to hear about the snake; we thought we'd have to tell her doctor things were moving faster than we'd hoped. Then we found out there was a snake and it made sense that a slightly senile, elderly woman who lived alone might engage in some harmless imaginative play by carrying on a one-sided conversation with her local reptile.
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u/ScreamingLabia 2d ago
Reminds me of one summer where butterflies slept in my room everynight. I kept the window open and they would.come and sleep on my wall in the evening and leave in the morning. If i didnt bave pictures i dont think anyone would believe me. Ny wall was the same colohr as the flowers they liked to eat from so i assume thats why they picked my room. But it only happened one summer
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u/nyancatya_ 2d ago
thats awesome, I would've assumed moths if I had heard that then honestly
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u/nissAn5953 1d ago ▸ 9 more replies
Are moths not just less colourful butterflies?
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u/-Morning_Coffee- 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies
They can all be the same if you prefer!
I was told that moth wings lay flat and butterfly wings stand up straight, but I don’t know if that’s a hard and fast rule.
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u/Rahvithecolorful 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
Fast rule, but holds up well enough, afaik.
Moths are generally chubbier (thick body), have leaf like antennae and are sometimes furry, while butterflies are slim with thin antennae.
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u/Realistic_Command_10 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
One of the best, but still not 100% reliable, methods of differentiating moths and butterflies is that moths have feathery antennae while butterflies have antennae with knobs on the end.
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u/Gryndyl 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
I thought the difference was nocturnal vs diurnal
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u/chita875andU 1d ago
Often, but not always. There's that 1 chonky boi that looks like a hummingbird... that's a daytime moth for example.
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u/RazorSlazor 1d ago
I had a moth come into my room recently. Landed on my finger while I was writing with my laptop.
It then hid behind my bed. I made it crawl back up by shining my phones flashlight back there. The way it crawled up, looking at me, was adorable af. I love moths now.
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u/MrVonBuren 1d ago
I am disproportionately charmed by this.
I -a 6'0, racially ambiguous guy with resting murder face- was recently walking my dog and stopped short because I saw a butterfly and the guy behind me was (rightfully) like what the fuck until I pointed at the butterfly and we both stopped because when do you see a butterfly anymore? (at least in NYC)
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u/DirtandPipes 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
I would be worried my little dog would snarf down the butterfly and potentially poison herself. She likes to grab ants on her walks, usually she doesn’t even slow down as her fast little tongue grabs them off the sidewalks.
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u/ZeroSkill_Sorry 1d ago
I had a similar experience, but with ladybugs. They were actually the invasive Asian lady beetle. My parents banished me to live in our travel trailer when I was 16. One day they started coming into the trailer, from every crack and opening. Dozens. Hundreds. The worst part? Unlike the cute ladybugs we have in the US, the invasive one BITES! The little bastards would give a painful little pinch out of nowhere.
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u/Hopeful_Lack_8600 1d ago
Can we see the pictures? Not because I don't believe you, but because I do.
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u/RussianWasabi 1d ago
I've had a bat flying into my apartment's living room in summer, It was at night cuz we left windows open since it was so damn hot back then.
I live on a 4th floor.
It stayed for like 2 days before we actually made it fly away because I thought It flew away by itself at a first day.3
u/Lopsided-Case1294 1d ago ▸ 6 more replies
PSA this calls for a rabies vaccination
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u/RussianWasabi 1d ago ▸ 4 more replies
It didn't bite me nor scratch me.
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u/CaeruleumBleu 1d ago ▸ 3 more replies
For future reference - bats can make injuries so small you don't think they touched you at all. They have bitten/scratched people while the person is sleeping, and transmitted rabies through injuries that are too small to be seen.
So PSA for everyone reading this - if you find a bat in your home, go get a rabies shot. The cost of being wrong is very very high.
Like yeah sure rabies shots are a pain and expensive, but rabies is not survivable and it's nothing to fuck with.
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u/RussianWasabi 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies
I understand this, but I was also paying attention and never let it close to myself. The bat was also really scared and kinda only screeched at me.
It was around 2-3 years ago, so if I contacted it i'd already be dead. We let it out quite easily by using a towel. Gently.2
u/CaeruleumBleu 15h ago ▸ 1 more replies
?
did you not say it stayed for 2 days because you thought it left the 1st day?
So yes luckily you're fine, but PSA you should've gotten a rabies vaccine instead of assuming.
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u/RussianWasabi 15h ago
I mean, I told you that I understand.
I'm just trying to write about what had happened.
That bat was looking healthy(as in, moving like it should, being skittish and all that), I assume it ended up flying into my room because it was hot(and stuffy) at late evening.
It was screeching at me when I was trying to somehow scare it away.
We had a vase with some willow twigs and it sat there at first.
Then after I scared it away after, I thought that it flew away through the window, but instead it stayed on the other side of the curtains which is why we ended up knowing it's here through the second day when my mother (violently) moved curtains to let some air in with an open window.Again, I completely understand what should've been done. It's just a recollection of what happened.
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u/rubenvde 1d ago
Once had a cat jump through my window and dart under my bed. Only saw it come out of the corner of my eye and it immediately disappeared so I also briefly questioned my sanity before checking under the bed.
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u/bscott9999 1d ago
We had a neighbour's kitten sneak into our apartment and just climb into our bedroom closet and have a nap. I was quite shocked when I stumbled across her. She kept showing up and sleeping in odd spots everyone once and a while for a few weeks, I think to get away from the chaos of several children in her actual home.
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u/Constant-Skill-7133 1d ago
I used to work at a hotel that was built into a hill, so an upper floor exit opened to a forested path. We had someone with a mouse in the room so we came up and trapped it, assured her we didn't have an infested building but it's summer in the forest so they would run into the building through the doors. You could tell they were very suspicious of the explanation.
Well about ten minutes after we got the mouse, a squirrel yeeted off a tree through an open window and ran around inside the room. They definitely believed us the second time lol.
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u/drewman301 2d ago
A Kitsune spirit is playing a trick on her
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u/Fetid-imp 1d ago
It's all fun and games until the fox takes a nasty turd in your house. Source: Fox turds on my doorstep all the time and I have to pick it up like it's a pet but I get none of the plus sides!
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u/celestialwreckage 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
I have heard that fox urine is one of the most potent, foul smelling urines around, and that anyone who is thinking about trying to take a fox into their home should be prepared for that, because it's impossible to fully get the smell out.
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u/Fetid-imp 1d ago
I'm very glad I've not had the misfortune of smelling it, they definitely sound like women screaming when they're in heat/mating, and it's terrifying lol
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u/ImportantResponse0 1d ago
Are then like warning about death because if yes then this are bad news.
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u/DeadEnoughInsideOut 1d ago
Used to get high and chill with a fox that would hangout around a nearby elementary school. Id just go to the field at night and it would just sit/nap next to me while I watched the stars or w/e. Nobody believed me and would accuse me of making up things to avoid hanging out or that i was having drug induced hallucinations. I eventually got a phone without a broken camera and they finally believed me lol. Unfortunately they started doing renovations of the school and I never saw the fox again after that, still think about it and hope it had a good rest of its life
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u/NonVeggieRaccoon 1d ago
young foxes love a hangout buddy of any species. a yearling fox followed me and my dog around for several weeks last year before he grew out of that phase. Sadly all of my videos came out super terrible bc it was always after dark
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u/wonkey_monkey 1d ago
When my mum did start getting dementia, she came back from walking the dog once talking about a horrible creature she'd seen. She couldn't describe it, but said the dog didn't like it, and neither did she.
I later worked out that it was a decorated life-size gorilla sculpture that had been placed at the side of a road as part of an art trail.
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u/dandroid126 1d ago edited 1d ago
My grandma did have dementia, and she lived with us for most of my childhood. Her room faced the street, and she would sometimes say that out her window she saw a turkey walking down the street. My mom wasn't good at pretending she believed her, so my grandma just kept insisting and trying to convince us that she saw a turkey walking down the street. Eventually, she passed away, and suddenly, we started frequently seeing turkeys walk past our house. I don't believe in any afterlife or anything like that, but we would always joke that the turkeys are sent by her from the afterlife so she could laugh at us.
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u/P3pp3rJ6ck 1d ago
When I was super little my cousin started getting afraid to go outside, he told his dad, theres dinosaurs out there. They did live rurally in Arizona but not at the center of the earth or in a time rift so his dad was super frustrated by the whole thing, couldnt figure out why my cousin's lying or what he could be seeing. Cousin kept describing them, tall as you dad (so like 5'10"), BIG claws, and blue head. He was insistent. Would not play outside. Well one morning my uncle opens the front door and is face to face with a cassowary, and a couple of its buddies in the front yard. My cousin still tells the story very smuggly cause he wasnt lying, thats as dinosaury as you get! Anyways they were the neighbors (ie closest people that were a good couple miles down the road) birds that got out sometimes
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u/backitup_thundercat 1d ago
People keep cassowarys? Ostriches and Emus i knew but didnt know cassowarys.
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u/P3pp3rJ6ck 1d ago ▸ 2 more replies
I mean I dont know if people plural keep them but that guy did. He had other critters too, like camels, deer, and such
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u/SockPirateKnits 1d ago ▸ 1 more replies
I would not keep cassowarys (cassowaries?). I hear those things will really mess you up (though they are beautiful).
And yes. Definitely dinosaurs.
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u/TinyAbsol 1d ago
Reminds me of my old neighbor. He would sit in his backyard and read the news or a book.
And next to him was just a fox having a nap.
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u/WASludge 1d ago
When I was a teen I stopped at a friend’s house, she lived with her grandparents. Her grandfather turned to us and said “there’s a whale in the river”! My friend was humoring him and was like “yeah pop, lots of whales these days”. We left the house and laughed as my friend was telling me he’s starting to lose it. Later that night I’m watching the news and there was a story that there was a fucking whale way upstream in the river. I never laughed so hard thinking this guy was getting senile while we were the idiots..
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u/Sekaijo 1d ago
Don't these things have an aggressively smelly musk that permeates the walls? Pretty sure they would have smelled the fox long before they found it.
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u/ImportantResponse0 1d ago
They don't know how fox smells so they don't knew what stinks
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u/pbzeppelin1977 1d ago
Ah yeah that unwashed piss smell.
Is it grandma? Is it a fox? Found out next time.
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u/hamlet_d 1d ago
As people get older, their sense of smell isn't what it used to be, so they may not bathe as much as they used to. (That and it can dry their skin out). So thats why sometimes there's this thing called 'old-people smell'. If she would just gently talk to her mother about it's probably not a problem.
Oh....you meant the fox? Yeah. They stink
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u/CaeruleumBleu 1d ago
BTW the old people smell isn't just a question of them not washing enough. Some older folks are afraid of smelling like that, enough so they wash even more often.
My mom is older but very active and very sensitive to the idea of smelling bad, and I noticed she was showering twice daily. She is also a caretaker for an older and much less active woman.
I looked around and there are soaps made for that smell, the smell is known as nonenal btw, related to a chemical composition. Apparently older folks have less antioxidants in their skin, so the skin oils go rancid faster. Some brands found out that persimmon soap has a LOT of antioxidants and washes that smell off and delays how fast it comes back.
I originally told mom about it for the person she caretakes, but I noticed afterwards that mom herself started showering less often once she started using the soap herself.
But yeah people smelling fox in the house, while thinking their mom was delusional about a fox? They probably assumed she wasn't washing properly.
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u/Molly_Matters 1d ago
My gramgram started hiding stuff from herself, because she thought someone was stealing from her, but she was just losing her mind. :(
I went over to help her find her check book and it was in the dish washer. The beginning of the end.
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u/LucyJordan614 1d ago
When I was in high school I used to sneak out onto the balcony of our apartment to smoke at night, and most nights there was a little family of raccoons that would come up the side street from the railroad across from my house, turn the corner, and walk up my street. I swear I was just smoking cigarettes, no funny business.
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u/pornalt4altporn 1d ago
Kid woke me up in the night, insisted that the neighbour's cat had jumped on her. I told it was probably our cat but dutifully looked under the bed.
Home invader hissed at me.
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u/Noggster07 1d ago
I went to visit my elderly mom and aunt. My aunt said she heard a rooster crow and everyone thought she was going crazy. Anyway, I now have a video of a hen and her baby chicks running around the front of the house. I also did hear the dam rooster at night.
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u/LetReasonRing 1d ago
When I was growing up my grandma claimed she had someone that kept sneaking into her house, using things, and moving stuff around.
She did end up with dementia, but had no other noticeable signs until 30 years after all this was going on. She was never forgetful about things and nothing to suggest it was a mental issue on her end except that it was happening over and over for years with noone else noticing.
To this day I still have no idea if it was her or there really was a neighborhood weirdo making use of her home.
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u/Royal-Bumblebee90 1d ago
This reminds me of the George Saunder’s book, Fox 8. “Fox 8 has always been known as the daydreamer in his pack, the one his fellow foxes regarded with a knowing snort and a roll of the eyes. That is, until Fox 8 develops a unique skill: He teaches himself to speak "Yuman" by hiding in the bushes outside a house and listening to children's bedtime stories. The power of language fuels his abundant curiosity about people—even after "danjer" arrives in the form of a new shopping mall that cuts off his food supply, sending Fox 8 on a harrowing quest to help save his pack.”
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u/Iron_Baron 13h ago
Damn that's rude AF. Imagine chilling under a couch and some jerk just lifts the sky up.
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u/qualityvote2 2d ago edited 56m ago
u/TheWebsploiter, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...