Lizards and Cats and Alarms, Oh My!

The TDY gremlins struck last week, and I mean to tell you - IT.WAS.UGLY.

It all started around midnight on Wednesday. I sent the last batch of email for the evening, shut down my computer and set the alarm. I walked around the house and began turning off the lights, which is when I heard all kinds of clatter near the back door.

When I walked to the door, I saw that my cat had his eyes -- and paws -- on a lizard. The lizard managed to break free from the death grip that Max had placed on him and began crawling higher up on the door. I ran to the kitchen to grab some paper towels to throw over the lizard, thinking I would catch him and set him free in the backyard. But when I returned, Max had trapped the lizard once again with his paws and was pulling him down to mouth level so he could sink his teeth into his prey. The lizard was feverishly trying to escape, so much so that he managed to pull away from Max's paws, but when he did, his tail broke away from his body.

The tail fell on my toes. Ewwwwww....... 

I'm not lizard-adverse. They don't usually bother me at all, but I prefer my lizards in tact and running away from me. You see, the tail that landed on my foot, although detached from its vital organs, continued to slither and move about. Ugh.

While I was trying to shake the wiggling tail off of my feet, Max recaptured the lizard and finally got it in his mouth. I wanted to get the lizard out of the house, dead or alive. If alive, Max would play with it endlessly, allowing it to escape, then roaming around crying until he found it again, which would keep me awake. If dead, at some point during the night, Max would drag his prey up on the bed because he would surely think that mom would be so gosh-darn proud of him that she'd just love to wake up and find a tail-less, half-eaten, dead lizard on her pillow. That'd be a great way to start the day!

So, I grabbed Max, lizard still firmly in mouth, and shooed him out the back door. I then turned my attention to the tail. It had to go. While Max and the tail-less lizard were wrestling outside, I picked up the tail with the paper towels. I had not paid any attention to the beeping that was alerting me to the fact that the alarm was about to go off. In a few seconds, the whole neighborhood would be awake. Lovely.

So, I said a bad word and tail-in-hand, I ran to the key panel. I managed to disable the alarm with three measly seconds to spare. By this time, my heart was beating as rapidly as it would have been if I had just completed a marathon. Uphill.

Once the tail was disposed of, the lizard had given up and Max was back in the house, I began to relax and pick up where I left off. But it wasn't over. Of course not.

I used the restroom before going to bed, and when I flushed the toilet, the handle went flying into the trash can beside the toilet. I shook my head, laughed and said to the toilet, "Hey, that's no fair. I'm the one who should be flying off the handle right now."

What a night!

Update: I see I'm not the only milspouse who has dealt with reptiles lately....

Comments

[LAW]

I did tell you about the headless baby mouse JJ Cat decided to give me.. whilst I was in the shower when I was living in MN during the last deployment, didn't I? now, for those who don't know me, I wear glasses, have since I was 8. So half blind, wet, and alone in the house, during the winter (when the field mice decide to find that one LITTTTTLLLLE hole and come into the warm) I look down at the cat who stuck his head into the walk in shower and see him deposit something.... I bend over to see.... headless baby mouse... the cat and dog were mightily amused at the screams, the attempts to detangle myself from the clinging shower curtain, trying to find SOMETHING to pick this up with... shampoo suds flying... finally got it to the toilet and flushed away. then the dilemma. rinsed the shampoo off in the sink, wrapped myself in the towel and scrubbed that shower floor with bleach for a LONG time.

love my cat - he makes life so interesting.

the tail moving though, Ida just freaked! I hate those lizards..

LAW

[tankerswife]

I got used to the lizards in Okinawa. Actually, you get to liking the geckos as they eat the mosquitoes, which of course seem to be hatched from pools of steroids.

I can't handle spiders. And of course, our yard was completely filled with them this year. I try to take a philosophical approach...I'll stay out of their home if they stay out of mine. Unfortunately, a great big honker decided that my front door was a good place to hang out. Ugh. I called DH only to be told to kill it. As if. Luckily the neighbor saw my distress.

We made a two-pronged plan of attack. I squirted it off the glass with the hose from a safe distance. Once the enemy was disoriented and on the ground, my ally in arms attacked using the 20 lb ground flatting tool. (I'm positive there's a really cool name for it, but darned if I know). Upon completion of said attack action, it was determined that the enemy had been destroyed, made into flattened paste. At which time clean-up commenced.

And of course, I had to make my report to DH. I called and simply said "Hooah". When he was done laughing his head off, he congratulated me. To which I told him that he had better not get used to me doing this sort of thing. He is still the designated spider killer when he's home. Oh, and I went straight to the store and purchased the biggest bottle of the nastiest bug killer I could get.

Hooah

[liza]

Don't want a lizard's tail will fall on my foot. I will totally scream if that happens. lolz

[Penny]

It wasn't a lizard but when our tibetan mastiff was 4 months old I realized he'd been awfully quiet that day
so I decided to peek into the backyard and saw him munching on a treat. But I hadn't given him a treat.

So I peeked closer through the window and saw red.. and feathers.. :groan: My dog had somehow managed to catch one of the many birds that flew into the backyard and I freaked out. There was *no way* I was cleaning up that mess and the dog and oh that poor bird. Dh was away in the field so I did the only logical thing, I called his brother in Colorado.
After I badly explained the situation (with me freaking out) he laughed (since I only call him when there's a rodent/animal issue) and said I had to clean it up and watch my dog for 24 hrs b'c the poor bird was headless and it might get the puppy sick.

Well, he stayed on the phone with me while I grabbed our pooper scooper, said a quick prayer and got near the bird.. I think that's when I realized every.single.bird. on post was on the power lines being extremely loud and it almost seemed like they were angry/crying which of course made things worse for me since I thought they were going to swoop down and go after me. lol.. I laugh now but I was a mess then.