Remember when I first saw this little dude? And then I told you how he’d gotten inside the house, despite my hopes to never see him again?
Well, when last we spoke of Mr. Lizard, I was praying to all the gods that the little dude had slipped out without me seeing. And after two weeks – TWO WEEKS! – I had stopped thinking about him. And that’s when it happened.
I was storing some art supplies behind my desk (like you do), when out scurried Mr. Lizard. He hadn’t left the house at all! He was moving a bit slowly, as I’m guessing he’d been without water for a while. (Food may not have been a problem, as small bugs and spiders regularly enter the house through open doors.) So I started yelling for Mister to bring me a big bowl. Which he did. And you know what happened? Yep. We lopped off the little dude’s tail. No matter how hard you try to save the little fuckers, they release that tail before you can blink. Personally, I think it’s all part of an effort to make people feel guilty. I mean, we didn’t want to injure the lizard. We just wanted him to be an outside lizard and not a house lizard. But injure him, we did. (At least we didn’t kill him.)
After Mr. Lizard was maimed, he seemed to be in shock and slowed way the hell down. He climbed between some poster board and settled into his post-tail-loss coma. Mister and I were able to lift the boards, with the lizard betwixt them, and take the little dude outside, where we put him in the grass. We left him there and hoped he’d recover.
Back in the house, the tail continued to wriggle and writhe for a full seven minutes. I’m fairly certain the dust-bunny didn’t help matters, but it clung to the tail until all life was gone. I scooped up the tail and the dust-bunny and tossed them.
I know that as long as we leave our doors open we will encounter nature in the house. I’m not keen on this, but I understand. And unless said nature is harmful or so scary I can’t handle it, I’ll continue to try and set it free. I guess I just have to accept that in the case of lizards, that’s likely going to mean detached tails. Bummer.