Last week, I mentioned in my column I had a lizard in my house. It was sunning itself just inside the sliding glass door in my kitchen.
I had no idea what to do, so I just left, surrendering the home to the reptile.
I also wrote about it on Facebook.
“There’s a lizard in my house. And I can’t think of anything to write about for my column. I’m at a loss as to how to solve either of these problems …,” I posted.
Luckily for me (and now for you) I received several responses, many of which I’ll share with you here just in case you ever find yourself in the same situation.
Kaeleigh Fowler came in with some sound wisdom.
“Burn your house down!” she advised. “It’s the only way.”
It was a solution my cousin Peter Vance once considered.
“Did I ever tell you about the time my dachshunds cornered a mouse on the gas pipe behind the kitchen stove?” he asked. “I couldn’t figure how to get it out. I thought about shooting it. Did I mention it was cornered on the gas pipe?”
While burning the house down makes a lot of sense, it works best as a last resort. After all, I’d hate to have to move into the lizard’s house — it just creates a circular problem.
Jeff Moser looked to an old ditty for answers.
“You could try swallowing it,” he suggested. “As it begins to wriggle and jiggle and tickle inside you, you can start swallowing larger animals.”
When I mentioned swallowing the horse, he interceded, “Noooo. Eating the horse ends badly. Stop at the cow.”
Although many were quick to point out that lizard was harmless and could actually be helpful by eating insects, others indicated it could be a bad omen.
“It’s Friday the 13th...and you’re home alone with a lizard...probably won’t end well…” Alan Underwood wrote.
Randy Gaa pointed out its potentially sinister intentions.
“The lizard obviously has a super power enabling him to give journalists writer’s block,” he said. “No telling what that thing is capable of doing.”
Several people suggested writing about the experience (which I’m sort of taking them up on).
Charlie Abowd even had a name for the literary venture.
“Sounds like a idea ... Lizard Chronicles,” he posted.
In the end, the story turned out to be anticlimactic. When I came home, the lizard was gone. Maybe it made a home in one of my kitchen cupboards, but I choose to believe it went back out the same way it came in.
But I did come away with some sage wisdom when it comes to writer’s block.
“Stare at the page until blood comes out of your eyes,” Kurt Hildebrand, editor of The Record-Courier, wrote. “That’s how a horned toad would write a column.”