Revenge of the lizard

I knew it was a mistake to turn my back on the lizard but nevertheless I blithely walked away, wondering all the while whether the lizard in my living room would come back to haunt me. Forty-eight hours later, I can only hope that its revenge is complete. Who knew that a dead lizard could cause so much commotion?

Let the record show that I am not afraid of lizards. I grew up in Florida with a brother who collected snakes, lizards, and other creeping things, keeping them in terraria all over the house so that we could simultaneously watch a re-run of Gilligan's Island and a snake swallowing whole a live mouse.

I have gone swimming and waterskiing in alligator-infested lakes!

I have eaten fried alligator nuggets while surrounded by my lunch's cousins at Gatorland!

I have peacefully coexisted with lizards that found their way into kitchens, bathrooms, and even bedrooms!

But that was in Florida, where creeping things are the price you pay for never needing to scrape ice from a windshield at 12 below. Lizards belong in Florida--and even if some lizards do belong in Ohio, they certainly don't belong in my living room.

At first I thought it was a grasshopper, the slim green thing moving swiftly across the wood floor. I grabbed automatically for something close at hand to smash it with and it was only as I was bringing the DVD case down hard on the creature that I realized that it was a lizard.

I smashed it all right, but then what could I do? A smudge of smashed lizard is the last thing I want to see on my living room-floor, particularly when I'm hovering on the edge of nausea already. Clean up the mess myself or leave it for the husband?

I left it--but only after attaching a sticky note to the DVD case. "Remove carefully," I wrote. "Creature beneath."

And then I turned my back on the lizard, walked out the door, and drove to campus to catch up on some important tasks I've been avoiding since June.

Except to complete those tasks I needed my laptop, which I realized I didn't have only after I arrived on campus. Where was my laptop?

Back home in the living room. With the lizard.

A wasted afternoon: the lizard's revenge. If only that had been the end of it.

The husband arrived home and saw on the floor a DVD case sporting a yellow sticky note right smack in the middle of the grim face of Inspector Frost. Look, a note! Better pick it up and read it!

So the note didn't quite fulfill its intended purpose, but eventually he removed lizard guts from all the places where they don't belong and we put the incident behind us. Except when we didn't.

Last night my sleep was interrupted about once each hour by blood-curdling screams--my own. The lizards were after me, big long green things with stilleto-sharp teeth. I saw them everywhere and I tried to make my husband see them too. The persistent presence of imaginary creatures in one's bedroom is bound to put undue stress on any relationship (see James Thurber, "The Unicorn in the Garden"), but somehow we held on until morning, when the lizards dissipated with the first light.

I have now sacrificed an afternoon and a long night to the revenge of the lizard and I think that's quite enough. Sleep, unquiet spirit! Go back from whence you came! Because frankly, this living room isn't big enough for the two of us.