The Killer Lizard... oh and I met a neighbor today

Now that Grace can ride her bike without training wheels, we spend every spare second outside watching her zoom up and down the road.  During that time I try to entertain Kate if she gets all pathetic and sad b/c she's not out there in the road.

Hahahah that sounds funny.  :) 

This afternoon I was letting Kate play with my watering can.  Well she was actually going to water something with it but we discovered a lizard in it so she decided to play with that instead.  While she was playing, some of the neighbor boys came over to see it.  It bit one of them b/c he was being a bit rough and the lizard got flung who-knows-where.  We could not find the thing.  As Kate and I were searching, the boys went on their merry way and we gave up looking.  I started making some phone calls (still outside) and she went back to digging in the dirt and being pathetic b/c Grace was across the street.

It was really windy so when I felt movement on my shirt, I didn't give it a second thought. I didn't even give it a thought after several odd movements on the back of my shirt and neck.

You know where this is going don't you?

I kept making calls and doing my work when all of the sudden, right smack in the middle of a conversation, I got twitchy b/c something was touching my face.  I turned and saw the lizard in my HAIR.  DO YOU HEAR ME???  IT'S IN MY HAIR!!!

I started screaming like a little girl.  Right in the phone.  Screaming in the phone and yelling to Kate (yes the 5 year old) "LIZARD!  GET IT!!"  She just looked at me like I was crazy and timidly reached a little finger out, stopping about 3 feet away and said "I can't reach it".  Well at least she pretended to try anyway.

I'm wiggling and swatting the thing and it has a great dodge/parry/spin maneuver going on so I am left to my own devices... and because I am a grown up who is not in the least bit afraid of lizards (seriously I am not.  I cannot explain what caused this hysteria)  I just continue yelling, screaming and trying to run away.  My friend told me later all she heard was indistinguishable screaming and the word "LIZARD".  I'm sure she'll need a hearing aid now thanks to me.

All I could think was that the creature was waiting to jump in my mouth or up my nose and the hysterical screaming would.not.stop... rational thought was no where to be found.

Because that's what a reptile would do right?  Make for the loudest orifice in the county or perhaps the tiny  little holes right above it??

Yeah.

 I must have looked...interesting...doing the crazy dance in the driveway.  My husband and son were gone to the store and Grace was having such a good time with friends she didn't even notice I was screaming.  I was left with nothing but hysteria and a shell-shocked 5 year old to combat this killer lizard that WOULD NOT GET OFF.  I swatted, I danced, I jigged, I yanked at my hair, I hyper-ventilated. 

I can only imagine what my friend was thinking.  She's much too gracious to really let the snorting laughter rip while I'm having a crisis, but I suspect she may have done that when I finally hung up.  I certainly did.  In fact there was no end to the laughter in my own home as Kate recounted to everyone exactly what I did out there.  But I digress...

Oh and do you want to know how I got the killer off??  As I'm dancing around the driveway yelling at the lizard and my phone, a nice sweet lady whom I've never met was out walking her toddler in the stroller.  As you can imagine she looked quite startled when I almost hopped in to her while trying to run away from my hair.  Rather than calmly introduce myself like an adult and ask for some assistance, I yelled "LIZARD!  LIZARD!  Lizard in my hair!!  Get it out!!!!".

God bless her, she grabbed my book from my hand and dashed the killer lizard off.  After laughing my fool head off and thanking her, we parted ways.  She handled it much better than I did.  But I'll bet tonight, somewhere in this subdivision, that lady is telling her husband "Honey, don't go down that road.  There is a C-R-A-Z-Y lady there.  She'll scream and make you remove reptiles from her hair.  And do NOT let Jr play with her kids.  They're probably crazy too".

And somewhere else in the neighborhood, a traumatized lizard is rounding his little lizard family up and searching a new home.