Saturday, January 9, 2010

Is "Leapin' Lizards" Too Obvious?




It's cold. Folks are bundling up in Georgia. Frozen lizards are dropping out of trees in Florida. Children are staying home from school in Ohio.

Oh, about the lizards. People are going to see that falling-iguanas thing in different ways. Some are going to call it proof that Al Gore is just being mean. Some are going to declare it the eighth sign of the Apocalypse. Me, I'm a simple soul. It reminds me of two things: (1) Cold iguanas. (2) Falling iguanas. Both of these are very familiar to me.

Thirty years ago, I had an iguana who was forever falling through the air. Or maybe it was just the once. Sparky's agenda on any given day involved locating a heat source and glomming onto it. It's a reptile thing. They get most of their energy for movement and digestion from external sources. This is why many iguana aficionados believe their pet lizards are personally fond of them, although I suspect they wouldn't be nearly so affectionate if they were not owned by warm mammals. You'll never see an iguana crawling on Dick Cheney, for instance.

So most of the time, when we'd look around for Sparky, who had the run of the house, she was in the same places: the coils on the back of the refrigerator, the radiator, or spread across the top of a floor lamp with her belly over the light bulb. One day, we couldn't find her anywhere. But we knew she would turn up, so we went to bed. That's when we spied her on top of a curtain valance. She had no doubt traveled up there in the daytime when the sun was shining strong through the window, and as dusk fell, she got colder and colder, eventually becoming too chilly to motivate back down. Dave, who is an exceptionally warm mammal and a nice guy, plucked Sparky, rigid, from the valance and stuffed her under his T-shirt. She didn't move much at first, but as the belly heat began to take effect, she started to come alive. Just about the time Dave was beginning to look like a victim in the Alien series, he reached under his shirt to extract the lizard and snap her back onto the refrigerator coils. But Sparky had lots of energy by then, and reacted by scooting up his chest and into his armpit. I'd never known Dave to be ticklish before. Yet there he was, a long green tail hanging out of the front of his shirt and a fringed green head poking out his sleeve, hopping up and down and screaming ACK ACK ACK. I had the same reaction to this as anyone would. Why can't this be happening when the Jehovah's Witnesses drop by?

Which brings me to the falling-iguana incident. At a time in my life when I thought it was impolite to tell a salesman that I wasn't interested, I let in a nice Avon lady and agreed to let her show me her box of potions. She was smiling, and alarmingly fragrant, and I knew she didn't have a thing in there I wanted. It should have been obvious to anybody that I was not a woman who spent money on cosmetics. To an Avon lady, however, I was just someone
who really, really needed to spend money on cosmetics. As the minutes wore on, I became increasingly aware that (polite soul that I was) I would have to locate something to buy so she would not have wasted her time. An array of skin cream samples dotted the sofa. And that is when Sparky, who had been biding her time on the top of the curtain, plummeted gracefully between us and landed plop on the sofa, the Avon lady bounced straight up six inches and made eepy noises, and dozens of tiny jars of skin cream flew into the air and rolled onto the carpet. She left quite soon after, tucking my order for a lifetime supply of face goo into her briefcase. It was totally worth it.

So I don't know what we should do about the icicle-covered oranges in Florida, but I do know we should station an army of warm men in T-shirts to stand under the trees.

20 comments:

  1. I LOVE this story!! I think there ought to be a law that Avon ladies can only call at houses with lizards! Many years ago, in Lloydminster, my Dad came home from work one day with a Spider Monkey. Seems his receptionist had bought it at Woolworth's and was allergic to it...so home to us Mitzi came. Acting much like your Sparky, Mitzi would climb up to the curtain valance and hang out there, perched above all the action. That's where she was one evening when Mr. and Mrs Rogers came calling, selling canned peanuts for the Rotary Club. Before you could nice beehive hairdo, Mitzi jumped from the curtain, and landed on Mrs Rogers' head...and promptly let her know she didn't like her new do by pooping on her.
    Sadly, they left before Dad could buy any nuts from them.

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  2. oops...add "say" as in, before you could say nice beehive hairdo...

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  3. Huge smile on my face and laughter in my heart!
    I saw info about the falling iguanas in Florida on our local news - they said a man was picking them up when they fell and had a bunch in the back of his van (apparently going to sell them???) when they warmed up and one jumped onto him - needless to say he was alarmed - which caused him to have an accident!
    I agree - "really, most things are funny" - and you just can't make up some of this stuff!
    Keep on writin' and I'll keep on readin' and laffin'!!!

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  4. LOL!
    Grteetings from the land of the frozen iguanas (and the hungry hummingbirds that nearly poked my eyes out this morning for being slow to refill the feeders).
    It's darn cold here, so cold I'm hoping to find a python popsicle or two in the next couple of days :D

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  5. um, that should be "Greetings"

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  6. Hey, that's cool, your fingers were cold.

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  7. Yes, LOL!
    By the way, Florida, Wisconsin can get cold, too, though I never saw an iguana fall frozen from anywhere. My ex was carrying box turtle Diode over to the UW-M campus one day in subzero weather--of course, giving her a good dose of male-mammalian heat under his north-country jacket. I guess his kind intentions got misinterpreted, or, more likely, Diode couldn't breathe. She gave him a zesty bite on the neck, a first bite to any of us, which was communicative way beyond a love bite. Translate: Give me AIR! Mr. Ex got the message.

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  8. Loved it. Saw two of the boogers today, in fact, so I can attest to the variousassity of the curtain story.

    Made me remember an iguana story of my own, so I stuck it up on Crackerboy. Thot u mite njoy it.
    http://bit.ly/5uPE4U

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  9. Where did Orphan Annie live?

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  10. Wow, I expected to have been beaten to the punch with a follow-up Dick Cheney comment. But since no one else has yet... Dick Cheney IS a reptile. Oh no wait, I take that back - I LIKE reptiles.

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  11. Orphan Annie lived in New York City, first the orphanage, then with Daddy Warbucks, I believe.
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orphan_annie -- This here's the link to the Wikipedia Page

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  12. Oh, that brings back memories. Years ago before the parents had gotten around to throwing me out, I had a thirty inch long Savannah Monitor who got got fed once a week and usually really freaked out and played with his mice before inhaling them.

    Anyhoo, the parents tried a preemptive move to dispose of me and tried to sell the house. One Sunday morning they were away at church. I had just gotten back from the pet shop and deposited the monitor's nine mice in his tank.

    The doorbell rang and I found a little old lady realtor and her little old lady client at the door. Not sure why, but they immediately went to back of the house, apparently straight to my bedroom. The realtor's patter dropped off and there was one of those amazing silences. Then someone screeched "OMIGOD!!" The ladies ran out of the house.

    When I went back to investigate, I found the monitor lizard busily painting the front of his tank with mouse blood, supplied by the mouse clamped in his jaws.

    The parents never did sell the house...

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  13. Bruce: OMG. Susan: I don't think your dad needed any more nuts.

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  14. Remind me to tell you the story about the monkey, the chandelier, and the salad.

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  15. Oh yeah, I also definitely identify with Dave's ticklish response to having a lizard crawl over him. I used to keep Tokay Geckoes, which for the uninformed are incredibly nasty lizards with giant mouths, big gold eyes and the ability to climb any surface. I had one named Asmodeus, who was an escape artist. Watching a thirteen inch lizard escape by running up a wall, across a ceiling and then down under a bed is enough to make you question your sanity.

    One time when he pulled the under the bed manuever, I crawled under to try to catch him. It was summer and I wasn't wearing a shirt. Well, he came running at me and I couldn't get out of the way, being pinned under the bed. I will never forget the feel of little gecko feet scrambling up my shoulder and then down my spine enroute to another hiding spot.

    Okay, that wasn't the ticklish story. The current lizard in residence, Lady Elgin, a nearly two foot blue tongued skink likes to snuggle inside my sweatshirt. It's okay until she starts to move. Man, those little claws can really make me dance!

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  16. Thanks Murr. Now I can entertain myself for the rest of the evening by picturing Dave being tickled by an alien in front of a Jehova's Witness.
    ACK ACK ACK!

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  17. Remind me to tell you the story about the monkey, the chandelier, and the salad.

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  18. Bruce: OMG. Susan: I don't think your dad needed any more nuts.

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  19. um, that should be "Greetings"

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