Larry the Lizard

My parents taught me a lot of things when I was a kid. One thing that they failed to teach me was how to catch a lizard. I know we don’t have a lot of lizards in Alaska but still. Learning how to catch a lizard would have been pretty helpful. Before I learn how to do that, let me tell you the story of Larry.

Larry is a little gecko-type lizard that is white and green and may be poisonous. This type of lizard will come into homes to find food, shelter, TV, DVDs, and other forms of entertainment. The other weekend Larry came in my house. I saw him, thought about how to catch him, and then lost him. Since I didn’t see him I figured he went back to his lizard family and I was lizard free. I was wrong; Larry was looking for a home. On Sunday night I was making pink lemonade from knitting and the proceeded to spill an entire pitcher of the sticky stuff down the back of my fridge and onto my floor. I grabbed a bucket and started to dump water on the floor so I could mop it. I dumped some soapy water and saw something wiggling at the other end of the kitchen. IT WAS LARRY!! Trying to drown him, I don’t like freeloaders, I dumped more water on the floor and Larry swam over to and then crawled underneath the stove. So I pushed bucket after bucket of warm, ok hot, water underneath the stove. No Larry.

Well, I figured the floor wasn’t sticky anymore so I went to bed. I got up late the next morning to find out 2 things. The first thing is that the floor was still sticky and something gross and sticky had pooled and dried underneath the front right corner of the fridge. I was late so I figured I would clean it up after work. I got off late from work and didn’t have time to clean it up before people came for knitting. Knitting was fine and then cleaning up I saw something in the goo, IT WAS LARRY!! Not knowing how to clean up a dead lizard I went to bed to deal with it tomorrow. The next night after work I decided, with some advice from some friends, that I should try to scrape Larry of the goo. Well, the goo was too sticky so I figured I would dissolve the goo with water and then sweep dead Larry into the dust pan to through him out. Pretty smart says I. So, I got some soapy Clorox water and poured it on the mess. That wasn’t working so I took a bucket of water, 2 cups of Clorox, and poured it on the mess. That was when I figured out something. LARRY WASN”T DEAD!!! So, I did what any Alaskan would do, I called a friend.

My friend from IT who lives just a little bit down the road was home so I called her and asked her to come catch Larry. Which she did do and I was very grateful. So, that is the story of Larry. Larry is outside, I think, and maybe even alive after being stuck to the floor and drowned in Clorox water.

Next time, I try straight Clorox.