Unwanted Houseguest

Despite being called "amphibian" for some of my childhood, I do not like most amphibians or reptiles. Today at the zoo I got my fill of reptiles when we visited the Reptile House. It WAS nice and cool, but the Reticulated Pythons and Boa Constrictors behind the glass gave me the heebie jeebies. There's just something about a slinky black snake that is called a Death Adder that's a little unsettling. You don't have to guess that that guy was venomous. I was happy to leave the Reptile House. The unfortunate thing is I think OUR house has become the new Reptile House. Yes, I sent Princess to go clean her room this evening, and when I went in to check her work, I see a very skinny shiny/slimy looking black reptile on four legs on the carpet in between her bed and her kitchen. My first impulse was to turn and run screaming from the room, but in Princess's best interests, I managed to stifle my distress, even though this little salamander/newt/lizard whatever you want to call its nastiness was like, five inches long. Princess suggested that I get a tissue... the normal way we deal with insects and other pests... but I couldn't handle the ramifications of THAT scenario, so I did what any intelligent mom would do. I got a very large cup and put it right over the top of him. He was trapped and I could hear him scraping along the sides of the cup trying to find a way out. Once again, I wanted to scream and run. But I only ran this time. Princess too. We ignored him, and I hoped somehow he would just disappear if we ignored him long enough. We had FHE (and it wasn't a lesson on "I am Grateful for God's Creatures") and after I decided that I couldn't let Princess go to bed in her room with that thing in there. I was actually hoping that Coach would get home and could handle the pest control, but he hadn't gotten home, so I thought up Plan B. This entailed getting it out of the house myself, and I wasn't looking forward to it. I was worried that he would escape again into a corner of her room, or worse, crawl up my arm. I got a piece of cardboard, and in one not so very swift motion, slid it under the cup. There was some slight anxiety at this point, and Princess offered me the use of her pinnk blankie to ease what must have been a very pained look on my face. Once again, I could hear (and feel this time) it scraping its long slithering body against the cup in an effort to get out. With Princess at the ready, she opened the door, and we released him back into the wild. I did have to take a picture to show Coach though. This is the sort of thing that makes you want freak out and wring your hands and make scared sounds after all. How did he get in here? Was he a stowaway from the Reptile House? I don't know, but I sure hope that there aren't any more shiny little black lizards roaming through our house at will. It's not a Death Adder, but it makes me think twice about going into my closet with the light off.