Reptile Wars

As a born and bred 'country man', there are some things that are very much a part of me and that I've grown to accept as being normal. One of them is my crowded home.

When I go home, I live in a house of about 30- my parents, my sister, and about 27 lizards...

OK... perhaps the count is a little too accurate-sounding, and probably highly inaccurate in any case. But you get the idea. At home we have a number of resident lizards, some of whom reside in fixed locations in the building. There's one that's always shooting his way across the living room carpet. There's another that stays behind the pack of newspapers on the ground. And before we remodelled the kitchen, there was a massive one which reisded behind our refrigerator, and though he didn't like people or light, and would dash behind the fridge once there was any movement nearby, he lived there for ages. He showed his love with the stains he left on the wall... but I won't get into details on that.

So I've always been quite at home with them around me. It's funny, though, that I've never liked touching them (one did jump into my head once but I wasn't bothered). But I always worry about stepping on them, and I certainly never kill them.

But that was in St. Ann. At campus, and at the W's where I stayed for 7 months, and in my current flat, I rarely had any animals other than homo sapiens in the room. And I get quite irritated when some upstart tries to change that. Lately, I've had a particular issue with lizards, which have crawled into my room via the bathroom window and beneath the bedroom door. The little ones take a liking to my room, and I've had to fight to keep them out of the bedroom, and off the face basin, and out of my shower. But there's one lizard who really got me red.

I had my third and final showdown with him yesterday morning before work. He'd obviously won the previous battles because he was still in my room. I was on the throne, he was on my table... our eyes made four, and we knew it was time for the big battle... It was like Neo vs Agent Smith... except that Neo was furnished only with a broom stick, and lacked the ability to move quickly. Agent Smith, on the other hand, had a very odd skill... the stupid lizard could not run, but moved only by hopping around like a grasshopper. It was amusing, actually. But it was also frustrating, because I got him close to my door twice before finally getting him outside the third time. But then I went outside, and he wasn't there... he just vanished... it was weird. At that point, I felt plain stupid. A five minute battle, and at the end I wasn't sure if the Liz-hopper had gone into the bushes or snuck back into my room. Surely, I couldn't have been outsmarted by a reptile!

So it's official- I don't like lizards anymore... until I go back home, anyway :-)