Lizard

On Wednesday afternoon, I headed straight for my house and the mango margarita mix because it was a beautiful day that I could spend on my new porch, work had been exhausting, and in just one more day it would be Spring Break. That's a lot of good reasons.

I sat out in the sunshine for a couple hours and went in to get another drink. On my way back outside, I had a run in with some wildlife. I opened the backdoor and saw something fall down at my feet. I looked down and saw a tail flip flopping by my right foot and then out of the corner of my eye I saw some animal waddling sans tail across the den floor. This is where the hilarity began. Hilarity. That's a word, right?

So I run outside screaming, leaving the door open because a tail of some animal is flipping around in the doorway. Will, who's working on his garden, looks up and is like, "What?" So I scream, "A lizard! I chopped off its tail! It's in the house! Ahhhhhh!" His response..."Well, do something about it!" My response, "I am!!!! I am screaming for you to come help!" So he comes to the house, picks up the flippy tail and feeds it to the chickens. The fact that I have chickens and can write sentences about how my husband feeds lizard tails to them adds to the ridiculousness of this situation. So then he goes in and we realize the lizard has hidden somewhere in the den. Will moves furniture all around and finds the critter under the couch. So, he says to me (by the way...at this point I'm hyperventilating), "I'm going to lift the couch and you have to make it run toward the door." My response, "Uhhhhhh.... (whimper whimper)" because I know this is the stupidest idea because the half-lizard isn't going to run toward the door. It's going to run AT ME! So, Will lifts the couch and sure enough, the lizard runs right at me. Waddle waddle no-tail lizard coming for my feet. So what do I do? The most logical thing to do in this situation: I jump right up on the coffee table and scream at the top of my lungs. Like a little girl. And I'm okay with it! Now you have to understand that this is really not a little lizard. Technically it's a skink which is much larger and looks kind of like an iguana or a baby alligator (in my opinion). Minus her tail, this gal was at least 6-7 inches long and fat and slimy looking. GROSS! (and scary!)

Will does some more hollering about how I need to pull myself together and snap out of it and stuff like that. I leap from the table and run into the kitchen where I decide to just let him be annoyed that I'm acting like an eight-year-old because he'll eventually catch the lizard, and I'll be safe again. He finally trapped it in the bathroom and carried it back outside. To be clear about the severity of this, he had to hold her head like you'd hold a snake by the jaw because it was trying to bite.

Some things I've learned:

1. When opening the back door, step back so that any lizards falling from the sky won't fall on you.
2. Lizards will "drop" their tails in attempt to get away. Didn't realize this, but now I know. I have to say it's a smart little strategy because it sure confused the heck out of me.
3. Don't listen to your husband when he tells you to run at an animal (even if it is just a lizard) so that it heads for the backdoor. It will just come at you.
4. Having a third (or fourth) margarita after such a traumatic incident does really help calm you down.


I've also come up with a plan for what to do if this happens and Will isn't home. I will be placing a mixing bowl over the creature and weighting it down with a book until Will gets home.