Yes, it’s a serious question. For one thing, I don’t know if he was underage. For another, well… I’m not entirely certain the lizard in question was fully consenting to the act. I mean, in some states you can go to jail for this kind of thing!
You see, the other day I discovered a lizard lurking outside my front door. When I shooed him away, he gazed up at me with such a woebegone expression of embarrassment and chagrin that I now wish I’d been a bit kinder and invited him in for a glass of wine and some cheese or at least a cuppa.
Anyway, I forgot all about him until I went to Chattanooga, Tennessee with the famous Teddy Tedaloo to meet up with a mate of his from “opp north” in England. Pints were on the agenda, and I was already running late. I was driving around the downtown area frantically trying to find my destination when suddenly I saw a familiar face staring in at me through the windscreen. Yup. It was my would-be intruder from the front door. Apparently he’d been there all the time, taking a nice leisurely snooze in that thingie where the windscreen wipers live (probably staying nice and cozy in a bed of decaying autumn leaves).
So there I was, zooming up and down the streets of Chattanooga with the little chappie clinging onto the hood for dear life. I finally parked near to my destination, at which point he scrambled down the hood of the car. And that’s the last I saw of him.
A pint of microbrew later (or its American equivalent, which is by no means a proper pint) and I’d forgotten all about the lizard. You can forget a lot of things when you go out drinking with bears. You should try it sometime.
It’s now been a couple of weeks since the event and frankly, I’m worried about the little guy. My dislike of his less-charming brethren is well known, having been honed and refined from spending time in South Florida and having the local versions sneaking into the house every chance they got, either to end up in the shower with me or to die behind a piece of furniture, leaving me to discover their mummified remains. But this hitchhiker… Okay. I’ve been won over. Slightly.
I can’t help but wonder if this creature that bears a tenuous resemblance to a dragon (minus the fiery snout) was hoping for a signed copy of my new anthology Thrones of Desire: Erotic Tales of Swords, Mist and Fire when he’d first appeared at my front door. I mean, it’s possible. He might have heard there are some dragons in the book and figured he might know one of them. And if you think that’s far-fetched, is it any more so than a lizard hitching a ride across state lines? I’ve come to accept and embrace the far-fetched. Indeed, the more far-fetched the better! Ask anyone who knows me: I thrive on far-fetched.
I can only assume that Mr. Lizard is now happily ensconced in Chattanooga, Tennessee embarking upon new and exciting adventures and making new friends. I hope so anyway, because I feel quite bad about it and am not ashamed to admit that I worry about his fate in “the big city.”
Of course it’s also possible that he returned to his hiding place by the windscreen wipers and drove right back with me to where he’d begun. Why, he might be lurking outside my front door at this very moment, hoping for another opportunity to be invited inside for that wine and cheese. If not, I hope he’s enjoying life in Chattanooga because frankly, I kinda miss him.
When I lived in Thailand, we welcomed the little fellas because they kept the malaria causing mosquitoes and poisonous spider population at bay in houses. I used to have a pet iguana when I was in college and, because it was in the sticks, we had nothing to do on most weeknights except sit around, party, feed him baby mice to the sound of the rock band, Rush, playing at full volume. He got away one day and the dorm cleaning ladies were not to happy…
A Rush fan. Interesting!!!