Pants on the Ground!

The days of 2005 and 6 were just crazy.

There was the shooting. The trial. The separation. A drought. Fire. And, adding insult to injury, there was a crazy lizard running rampant in my kitchen, scurrying amidst my pots and pans, frightening me every chance he had.

One morning I was home late, getting ready to go to work, stewing over one of the situations, I don’t remember which. I was taking a shower, I remember that much. And crying, feeling sorry for myself.

Big time.
After a little while, I wiped my nose and waited to make sure the meltdown was over. The water ran cold and still I waited. Finally, I turned the water off and stepped onto the rug, wrapping a towel around my head and rolling my pajamas into a ball, which I stuffed in the laundry basket as I passed by.

I had begun to pack my things in a haphazard, maybe-I’ll-leave-maybe-I-won’t-have-to sort of way. 

My clothes were stuffed into a trio of lumpy pillowcases I had propped against the wall that had since spilled sideways like melting snowmen. Sitting on the end of the mattress, I toweled my hair dry and tugged a camisole over my head. Underwear next – pink flowered TweetyBirds that my daughter had rejected – and last but not least, I pulled on my favorite pair of jeans, the ones with scrappy hems and holes that have been patched and worn new holes in the patches. I was lost in thought. To leave or not to leave: that was the question. 
The jeans were about mid-thigh and coming on up when I realized with shocking certainty that I was not alone in my britches. I screamed, jerked them down and leaped onto the foot of the bed in a slick move that would’ve scored me straight tens if getting out of blue-jeans was an Olympic event.

A green head poked out of the leg hole. Alien little fingers gripped the waistband. Black eyes locked onto mine and we stared at each other, equally speechless, equally offended.

Lizard Boy strikes again.

His mouth curled into a grin and  he darted across the floor, disappearing into a crack in the wall behind a potted plant. Five minutes later, I was still on the bed, frozen in all my Tweety-glory, staring at the crack, my fists clutched at my chest, defeated by a dwarfed dinosaur.

Something in me snapped. 

I was sick and tired of mice in my bed. Rats in my bathroom. Tired of snakes on my porch and skunks under the house. Tired of crows pooping on my telephone. 

Tired of lizards in my pants!

I reached for my jeans and gave them a vigorous shake. The heck with leaving. This fight was on, baby. I tugged them closed and headed straight for my phone. I picked it up and called the sheriff. “Hey,” I said, as soon as he answered the phone. “Do cats kill lizards?”

“What?”

“Do cats kill lizards?”

“Probably, why?”

 “Because I have one that needs killing,” I said, “I have to go now.”

I jabbed my feet into a pair flip-flops by the door. I might not be so great with the mouse traps, but any dummy could operate a cat. On my way out the door, I aimed an evil eye between the leaves of the potted-plant.

“Your days are numbered, Lizard Boy.”