to lizard extraction
In yesterday’s episode, our heroine (me) made the momentous decision to remove an interloping lizard single-handedly.
For those who are not troubled by reptiles and/or other small scurrying creatures, this may not seem a sea-change* (Flapdoodle!) But for someone who once (long ago in a galaxy far, far away) spent a terror-filled night tortured by a cricket and, somewhat later in life, nearly fell off the rocking chair she had leapt onto at the sudden appearance of a hamster in an apartment previously hamster-less, it is, indeed, the miracle which warranted beginning the story yesterday as part of our series of Monday Miracles.
In a state of mingled what-am-I-thinking and how-brave-am-I as I contemplated reptile removal, I considered the options.
The MotH** just picks them up. As, in fact, had my grandmother and my mother, in the past, so that’s pretty much all that occurred to me, and clearly, that was what I was going to have to do.
Now, visited by sudden bravery I might be, but I am also a person with a certain amount of self-awareness. I knew it was extremely unlikely that this resolve would be carried through bare-handed.
And this is where today’s Tuesday Tip comes into play.
Always know where your gardening gloves are!
I have several pairs of work gloves and gardening gloves, and none of them are kept in the garage (me having a healthy—some might say ‘elevated’—sense of self-preservation and no wish to encounter a brown recluse spider being reclusive alongside my index finger). In fact, my best gardening gloves—the ones with the rubber fingers allowing for more manual dexterity than the leather work gloves—are in a drawer next to the side door.
Now, this is the important part. Not only are they supposed to be in the drawer next to the side door, they actually are there.
Look out, lizard.
Will Elaine find her gardening gloves? Will the lizard wait until she does? Will this story have a happy ending? And how did the lizard get on the window sill, anyway?
For the answer to these and other questions, tune in tomorrow to Wondering Wednesday.
* Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act I, sc 5 (Ariel’s song)
Full fathom five thy father lies,
Of his bones are coral made,
Those are pearls that were his eyes,
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea-change,
into something rich and strange,
Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,
Ding-dong.
Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.”
** MotH=Man of the House
