We had debated on whether we should let him outdoors today. There was a commotion in the woods last night. It set the neighborhood dogs howling and brought the thought of coyotes and bears to mind.
But with our long-tailed, black and white kitty begging, begging, and begging some more at the door, we had given in and let him go get his wiggles out.
"I just saw him playing with a lizard," the Asset replies. Such critters provide a lot of entertainment - and exercise - for our cats.
A little later I go through the mudroom and find a good sized (albeit tailless) blue-bellied lizard stuck under the door to the guest house. I get down on my knees and try to pull him free, but his head is too big to go in either direction, in or out. He wiggles his legs to let me know that he is still alive down there in this unhappy predicament. I get the key to the door and slowly start opening it, only to realize that the weather stripping on the bottom will most certainly take off his large, triangular head.
Now, I've handled all kinds of little critters in all kinds of situations. They are usually terrified and unwilling guests covertly brought inside by one of the cats. Of these, lizards are the easiest. I have no problem picking them up in order to give them one more shot out in the wild. I've found that a firm grasp on the back of the neck usually does the trick. At least long enough to get them out the door.
But honestly, in all my lizard encounters, I've never met this exact situation before. I grab him with my fingers and gently wiggle him a bit, trying to pull him back out. Doesn't work. I try a little push. No good. I try moving the door once more but it simply drags the little guy along for the ride. I don't know how he got where he did, but I just can't see any way to get him out without decapitating him. And I just can't do it. I cannot get myself to push open the door that will tear the head off of this unlucky creature while he is still alive.
So of course, I call for National Asset. He comes down from his office where he was probably working on an international crisis of some sort and gets down on his knees in the mudroom. He gently pushes and pulls on the little guy. He tries opening the door. He agrees with my assessment of the situation. I tell him I just can't intentionally do something that will rip the head off the little guy.
Ever my hero, he goes for the tool box. He rummages around for a screw driver and patiently takes off the weather stripping, screw by screw, releasing the tailless reptile. Is this Blue Belly's lucky day, or what?
It lays there, very still.
"Is it dead?" I ask in hushed tones.
"I don't know," the Asset replies.
I reach down to pick the poor thing up when it suddenly jumps from my fingers and lands on the floor. It does the frantic side-to-side dance of his species that doesn't cover any real distance but must be its last, most desperate defense. I try to catch him, but he eludes me.
"Where is he?" I ask the Asset, who is still kneeling on the hard tile floor, carefully putting his tools back in the box. "Don't step on him!"
We call where is he? back and forth like some kind of antiphonal song as we search. For one small, mostly dead critter, he sure is giving us a lot of grief.
The Asset carefully feels around his knees and feet and slowly begins to stand up. I see movement.
"Oh, he went up your pant leg!" I exclaim.
As the words are still flowing from my mouth, the Asset begins hopping on one foot while madly shaking the other and making these really odd sounds with his mouth.
"Don't step on him!" I repeat, barely getting the words out because I am laughing so hard. "We didn't go through all this to have you stomp him to death!"
Finally our poor, severely traumatized lizard literally loses his grip and drops out of the Asset's pant leg. I gently pick him up and lecture him (Blue Belly, not the Asset) as I carry him out to the rock garden. Something to the effect of you really need to hide from the kitties better, and I don't ever want to have to do this again.
I return to the mudroom and we can't seem to stop laughing.
"Do you know what that feels like to have a lizard holding onto your knee inside your pants?" he asks, and we giggle some more as he patiently screws the weatherstrip back on the guest house door and returns to saving the rest of the world.
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