Lizzy the Lizard Who Lost her Tail...Oh NO! This is Her Tale!

 

   I am Lizzy. I live on a Patio with a lot of other South Louisiana Lizards. We make a good living on mosquitoes, flies…you know, all the good stuff…Louisiana food can't be beat…you just ask anyone!
   Life is wonderful…or it was. I accidentally wandered into the house next to our patio and couldn't find my way out for quite a while. I finally made my very clever escape. I'm glad, too, because the food they served me in that house was boring…BORING.
  Well, as I was saying, life outside on my big patio was wonderful once again. Until.
  First of all, I don't know where they came from, but these big white furry dog-monsters started chasing me and my family for dear life. We think one of them must have got Morty because we found him laying out flat…and yes, he was dead. None of us saw what actually happened, but word got around that one of those awful birds took off with his body. Good-bye Morty, we hardly knew ye, we all said.
   Well, if that trauma wasn't bad enough, we now see this big black shiny "cat-thing" slinking and sneaking around the patio with big green eyes that are looking at everything…it chases our flies, "Hey! Those are our meals you are messing with, you!" It chases us, even! It chases the birds. It runs up trees in the yard, fast!
  Now here is the scariest thing that ever happened to me: it got me! We all saw it slinking around the corner of the lawn mower, so we all scurried under it, and I thought I'd made it, but it grabbed me! The black shiny monster had me! It was pulling me away from my family by my tail!
  I screamed, Lila, my sister screamed…my whole family and friends were screaming too!
  The monster was thrashing and causing such a wild commotion, that somehow, our beloved lawnmower moved around, which I guess scared the killer, so he let go, but one of the wheels rolled right onto my tail!
  Before the monster could get his paws under our machine, everybody grabbed onto me and pulled. I felt something behind me snap, but I was free to run with the rest of them, and so we did.
  I never saw the rest of me again, but from the stories I hear from the old folks in my family, it's supposed to grow back bigger and prettier than ever. At least that is what they are telling me.
  So, I guess the moral of my story is, be careful out there in the big scary world. (…and don't listen to Cappy's version of how the moral should go about how to not lose your tail.
   OH. 

  

 

 

 

I wrote this several years ago before Cappy retired:

  I just put Lizzie outside today. I was finally able to catch her. She was what I called a lizard, but I guess she was really a chameleon; isn't that a lizard?
I first spotted her in the den window with her little paws on the glass, looking around at the big outside world. Poor little thing.
  I tried catching her for about a week, to no avail, because she'd dive to the floor and take off zipping away, hiding behind some heavy piece of furniture that I couldn't move…but every morning she was back at her post in the window, watching life going on the outside the glass.
  I began to worry about her, thinking she'd need something to eat, especially if she was doomed to spend the rest of her life trapped inside our house, pining away for the freedom she could only see through the window. I began to put tiny little pieces of raw hamburger on the sill, along with a spot of water.
  Aww, she was so cute. Every day it was the same ritual; she'd see me getting close with the meat, so she'd run to the top of the window pane, then slowly...very slowly she'd descend, upside-down staring at the meat. When she'd get down to the corner and onto the window sill, she'd do this really funny thing with her head, quickly moving it in and out...backwards and forwards toward her meal, sometimes waving her arms around, too. She'd get to the meat, then stand and look longingly out the window some more, at which point I'd leave her alone and go get some work done. A little while later, I'd come back to find that the meat was gone and she'd be 'splayed out' all paws on the window.
  But, the other day she didn't come for the meat and I didn't see her for a couple of days. I hoped that she'd finally been able to find her way out, the same way she'd found her way in.
   I kind of missed her. When Cappy's on the boat, as silly as it seems, it's nice to have another living 'body' in the house; 'somebody' to take care of.
  This morning I was settled down on the sofa with my cup of coffee, when I saw a little movement on one of my indoor plant leaves just below the window. Then I saw a skinny tale moving around. "Lizzie??? Izzat you, girl?"
  Sure enough it was. I picked up the whole plant, hoping she'd stay put 'til I got her outside...and she did. She even tried changing colors, but she was either too worn out, or confused, because she turned tan instead of green. I took her outside and let her jump down into the flowerbed by the front door.
 "Bye Lizzie!! Have a nice life out here in your big wide world!"