You know there are a couple newts in the house when...

[joseph]

30: Even though its much harder to use...you dig with a three forked trowel so there's not as much of a chance of killing the worms

These are great! Keep em rolling!

 

[joeri]

31. You give your fish away and use their tank for a new setup

 

[colin]

32. You agreed to getting a new extension on the house because in the back of your mind it will give you space for a few more tanks.

 

[jennifer]

33. When you are house-hunting, your #1 criterion for the perfect house is that it has a basement.

 

[TJ]

33. When you freak out your uninitiated dates by repeatedly turning the topic to newts.

34. When you can somehow find a connection between any subject...and newts!

35. When your idea of the perfect mate is somebody who likes newts (or puts on a good show of it!).

36. When your read about floods, earthquakes or other natural disasters, or even war, you can't help but worry about newts being affected.

37. When you find yourself spending inordinate amounts of time at misc. shops trying to discern if drawings or figurines on sale are supposed to represent geckos or newts.

By the way, here's what Pin-pin was talking about when she mentioned the wedding cake toppers

(Message edited by TJ on June 01, 2004)

 

[henk]

38 You start wishing you could change skin, regenerate digits and start feeling the need to wander around emeral green moss and ferns during rainy days instead of beaching up along the coastline ....

 

[chris]

39. The most frequent phrase you use is 'just 1 more tank...'
40. The post man starts tentitively delivering soggy parcels with 'LIVE ANIMALS' written on them on your doorstep
Chris

 

[kaysie]

40. Your thermostat is set permenantly at 65F even if your lips are blue and you're wearing two sweaters and three pairs of socks because it's not about your comfort, it's all about the newts.

 

[marion]

41. You have no idea what's on TV because it's more interesting watching your newts.

 

[kaysie]

42. You stop at every stream you see "just to check"

 

[paris]

43. your coworkers know more about caudates than they ever wanted to.

44. you go on vacation and have to interview/initiate the 'babysitter'

45. you spend so much time in windows collecting bugs that your brother in law nick names you 'Reinfield' (this is true)

46. other family members start saving up bugs they find around the house for you

47. you give impromptu talks/lectures to people who see you carrying a critter keeper and want to know all about the animals.(especially kids)

48. the animals are assistants in your persuit to help you flirt with coworkers ('hey check out what i just got')

49. you no longer scrape together all loose change around the house to buy alcohol-you use it to buy a bag of crickets.

50. you know more about insects than the 'orkin man' by proxy and you like them.

51. your coworker invites you to her bachlorette party by mentioning its on her parents property and there is a pond there that has tigers. (yes im going on the 6th and she knows ill be bringing a net and bucket)

52. alot of your tupperware has holes burnt in it-and your ok with that.
(.....yet you will still eat out of such tupperware when the need arises.)

53. you are VERY sensitive to those people who call them 'lizards'.

54. school teachers that meet or know of you ask if you can come to their school and give a talk.

55. your hobby gets you into the paper (front page) and next thing you know you are getting calls from all over the state for advice and even mail packets from people in prison. (i removed my name from the phone book after that!)

56. you turn in your 401K to buy a computer so you can surf the internet to study up on the animals and get in touch with other hobbiests.

57. you take out a student loan to buy a video camera so you can take hours of footage of their behaviour.

58. your friends think you are REALLY weird because you spent the night watching your animals mate.

59. your friends cringe when you ask them if they want to see videos of your animals breeding.(or giving birth/egg laying)

60. your 'baby pictures' are not exactly what some people expected....

(Message edited by paris on June 03, 2004)

 

[ralf]

61. One watches "Jackie Chan" movies just for getting a glimpse of what Hongkong streams might look like.

(Message edited by ralf on June 03, 2004)

 

[sergé]

Great section! Let's go for the 100 and publish them as a first international publication!
62. You refer in discussion on literature constantly parts of Thorn (1968), Griffiths (1995) or Petranka (1998).
63. you always turn up with wet feet at every appointment as you had to check the nearby fresh water for newts.
64. your idea's on tattoos always turn in the direction of doing your complete belly in orange with spots at the locations of your favorite species.

 

[leanne]

65. Every container you survey at a garage sale is a potential hiding place to put into your newt or salamander tank.

66. Your newts get tired of you peering in at them all the time and you could swear you see one of them actually roll his eyes in exasperation while swimming by and say, "Crimony, take a picture, it'll last longer", And you find yourself actually answering them apologetically, "Be patient, I'm still saving money for a digital camera!"

 

[mark]

67. You've given advice to every local pet store with newts as to how to feed them correctly. They pretend to listen.

68. You find yourself wondering what species (and how many) of salamanders are in a certain radius of your home.

 

[mark]

69. You go online and do the same repeated search of a species, pretending that you havent seen every one of those sites before.

 

[mark]

70. You spend many a lunch hour at work on Caudata.org. Sometimes you bring up another window over it when coworkers walk by. Like I am doing right now for example.[click]

 

[mark]

71. You wrote Petranka an email of praise after taking out his book from the library. (yep, I did that a couple years ago.)

72. You search ebay, wondering when Petranka's book will be selling there for $5.

 

[anthony]

73. You chase birds out of your yard so they don't eat your newts' worms.

 

[kaysie]

lol, anthony, I yell at the robins all the time, you're not alone.

PS: did anyone notice that these are all numbered horribly wrong? Paris posted 16-23, and then Colin started over at 17.