11/30/04--The Lizard Story

Ya know, one of the greatest things about visiting my parents isn't just seeing them, its the stories that come out of the visits.  Today, we present:
The Lizard Story.

So on Thanksgiving, my sister is laying down on my parents bed, and I go in and we're talking and then my brother comes in, and before we know it we're all laying there just shooting the shit about the old days.  Kim comes walking in and we ask her to go get my mom and have her look at her grown children laying there like we were all still 12 years old or something.  She came in and laughed, and I told her all that was missing was for my brother & I to start fighting and then me to complain about it.  So she says....since we were all laying there, that she should tell us a story.
And then she told us about....the lizard.
It seems that a few days before my mom had come to bed, and my father was already in bed and my mom looks over on her nightstand and sees this lizard just sitting there.  Well naturally, mom sort of freaks out and asks my dad to REMOVE the killer, death dealing lizard.  Dad walks over to the other side of the bed and the lizard, clever little bastard that he is....DISAPPEARS!  Total Houdini!  Well, mom is very disconcerted at this development, and announces that...(drumroll)....she will NOT sleep in the bed until the lizard is captured, tortured, questioned about his true intentions, made to reveal the true whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, then drawn and quartered and killed.....or thrown out into the backyard, whichever comes first.
So mom goes and sleeps in the guestroom, because of course if she slept, ya know, where she USUALLY sleeps, the lizard would no doubt stalk her in the night and do unspeakable....lizardly things to her!  (is that a word?)  Well, believe it or not, this goes on for FOUR nights, and my parents head on down to Lowe's to get...the deadly lizard gluetrap.  Trully a more heartless device has not been invented.  Are you familar with this contraption?  Its purpose, if you will allow me, is to trap the lizard by getting its legs or feet caught in the glue UNTIL THEY STARVE TO DEATH!  I mean, c'mon!  Throw the damn thing in the backyard....or leave it in your house to kill bugs.  Anyway, mom & dad, angels of death--lizard branch--that they are, lay in wait until finally, the night came.  My dad sees the lizard laying...bold little bastard...on the phone.  Just sitting there, probably waiting for a phone call from his agent or girlfriend, but whatever....and my dad shakes the nightstand so that he...(sniff, sniff) FALLS INTO THE GLUE.  So by this point in the story, my brother and sister & I are totally enraptured by the story.  So we ask our parents the all important question....
"What did you do with the lizard?  Did you take him outside and let him go?"
"Well, no....we threw the gluetrap into the trash with him in it."
MURDERERS!!
Anyway, at this point, my dad walks up to my mom like he's Fabio or something and says...
"Mary, how would you like to sleep in your own bed tonight?"
Her hero.  And mom had a wonderful night sleep that night.  Which is more than I can say for the lizard, who is presently laying in a trashbag somewhere in a landfill in the greater Orlando, Florida area.....wondering what all the fuss was about....and why the phone never rang.

Later,
Jeff