say hello to my little friend

i'm still scratching my head over how it got there, exactly.

i mean, i guess it must have come in our apartment when i opened the back door for the dog to go pee last night. it was only open 2 minutes or less, and i was standing right there, but i suppose that's plenty long enough.

but exactly how or when it got to it's final destination--where i found it--AND without me noticing......??

i was lying on the couch last night watching flay vs. boucher on iron chef america. I had just let the little dog out to go number one and laid back down on the couch in my pajamas with a blanket to see who won "battle arctic char." Either the blanket or my pants were touching my leg in such a way that kept making me....not tickle exactly, or itch either--more subtle, like (for the ladies, anyway) when it's been a few days since you shaved your legs and the hair is just long enough that it over-alerts you that something is touching you--but really there's nothing there.

i readjusted both the blanket and my pants a couple of times, and resolved to shave my legs the next day.

AGAIN--the sensation--and for a split second i had a flashback of when i was a kid, staying overnight at my cousin's house once, looking down at my stomach in my pajamas at something making a tiny tent between my skin and the cloth. when i shook it out, it was a curled up dead spider.

*shudder*

i pulled back the blanket and thought i saw the cloth on my upper leg near my hip actually move. I must be hallucinating, but i was starting to feel panicked. I started picturing giant cockroaches the size of my thumb since we had seen three in our apartment since moving in.

*shudder*

i swept my hand over my leg, under my pants, just to be sure that it was just all in my head--that it really was just my leg hair setting off false alarms--and saw legs?! a tail?! i think they were....green?

*SCREAMING*

*SCREAMING*

utterly panicked, i flung whatever it was out of my pants, not even sure i'd really seen anything. maybe i hallucinated a glimpse of it scurrying away to who knows where across the carpet, too.

of course by then padraic was up, jolted awake by his nine-month-pregnant wife's shrieking, expecting to see--i don't know, exactly--a pool of blood? something horrific that indicated his baby was in danger.

i was standing in the middle of the living room in my underwear, pants ripped off in panic by then.

"what's wrong? what's wrong? are you ok?"

"there was A LIZARD!!!

there--was--a--LIZARD--in my pants!!"

still half sleeping, he kept telling me to stop talking so loud.

"but there was A LIZARD!! IN MY PANTS!!!"

i felt like he didn't believe me.

"you scared me, laura, i thought something was wrong with the baby. stop talking so loud."

"BUT THERE WAS A LIZARD IN MY PANTS!!"

does he not hear what i am saying?

he disappeared for a moment--to the bathroom, maybe?--i was focused on the lizard, since it had to still be there...somewhere.

i gingerly started looking for it, under the coffee table, under the couch. padraic came back into the room.

"did you see where it went?" i asked him.

he didn't. i don't think he ever saw it at all. i don't think he believed me.

i rubbed my leg where it had been.

"there it is!" i pointed to the wall near the ceiling.

[it more or less looked like this, only it was light green, and about 6? inches long, including its tail.]

I felt a little triumphant and a little relieved, since the proof i wasn't crazy was clinging right there to the wall. relieved, because it wasn't a giant cockroach or spider after all.

and yet i stared at it in disbelief.

how does a lizard get into your pantleg??

we caught the lizard in a plastic container, threw it back outside, and went to bed.

I never did find out who won "battle arctic char."