There is one movie genre I always say yes to, and that is the creature feature.
“Jaws” is easily on my list of top-10 movies. I watched “Piranha” and “The Meg” this summer, and rewatched “Jurassic Park” and “The Birds.” Give me a bowl of popcorn, characters who think they are in control, a situation which falls spectacularly apart, and I am a happy human.
Something weird has been happening this summer though. Is it the wildfire smoke? The hottest July on record? Am I watching too many movies?
Because the creatures have crawled out of the screen into my real life.
Two weeks ago, while pet sitting on Hilton Head Island, I woke up to a text and photos from our neighbor.
“We had company in our pool!” she said.
Our neighbor had gotten up for the day, dressed for her morning swim, and stepped outside. I’m not sure how she had the presence of mind to take a picture of what she saw.
Resting comfortably on the bottom of her pool, perfectly visible through the clear water, was an alligator.
The theory is that it walked from a lagoon during the night. The same walk we take every day.
And that was at least the fourth, too-close-to-home, animal encounter we’ve witnessed since June.
My husband and I started our summer travels in Sweden. On our first night in Malmö, we sat outside at a sushi place overlooking a square, while seagulls wheeled above us.
We were relaxed, watching the people and the light. A lone diner smiled over her beautiful plate of freshly-served sushi.
Then there was a cry, a rush of wings, a commotion of people hastily standing. And a seagull, already aloft, carrying a lovely piece of sushi in his beak. We all watched as, still flying, he gulped it down.
There was also the gecko that ran down my arm as I unfurled a pool umbrella.
The bear that left a mound of scat on my in-laws yard in northern Michigan, then furthered the insult by leaving another pile in their lane.
The fish that jumped clear out of the water in front of my kayak, prompting me to yell several words unfit for print.
And the rather large shark my husband and I saw in two feet of water on the South Carolina beach.
Something I like about creature features is that the creatures are not evil. They are just being their animal selves, adapting to their circumstances.
Animals find new resting spots, gourmet meals, and places to use the facilities. We drive around the scat pile, begin dining exclusively under shaded cover to prevent aerial attacks, and cast an extra glance at the pool before we wade in.
From my perspective, the animals I’ve met this summer are not where they should be. But if I could interview that pool-loving alligator, perhaps it would say that its family has been around for 85 million years, so which one of us is new in town here?
We’ll see which of us makes it to the end credits.
As to the current scene, if we cut now to that particular alligator, we’d find it back in the lagoon.
At least that’s where the animal officers left it, after they arrived on scene, leashed the gator with a sturdy pole, and walked it back down the middle of the street.