Lizards and Cats and Alarms, Oh My!

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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....


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