“Good morning, Lizard Hospital. How may I help you? Oh, I see. You’re looking for a family of suckers who will take in injured everyday Florida yard lizards, nurse them back to health and potentially adopt them for life? Yep! You’ve come to the right place. Let me just go flush the rest of my sanity down the toilet and I’ll be right with you.”
My house is now … a lizard hospital.
There are two reptilian ICU containers sitting in my dining room. Stuffed with grass and sticks and pieces of drying ground beef. YouTube videos are on the computer about caring for injured lizards. A syringe sits in a bowl of water in the kitchen waiting for my daughter to dribble drops into their mouths.
I hope these two critters have insurance. Someone is going to have a hefty bill for this top-shelf care.
It all started a week ago. My daughter returned from walking the dog to recount the trauma she had witnessed: A massacre! Lizard carcasses scattered about the sidewalk. (There was a flat frog in the street, too, but that was a different problem. Speeders!) The lizards must have had a run-in with a cat. An angry cat. With a grudge. He left the broken bodies as a warning to others.
“It was awful!” she said. “There was just one survivor. And as you can see, he’s not doing so well.” She shoved the lizard in my face. He had one eye bulging out. It’s an image you’ll never forget.
“Good Lord!” I said recoiling. “I can see why the cat didn’t want to eat him.”
“Yeah, well, I’m going to have to adopt this one and nurse him back to health,” she told me. “I’m naming him … Sammy.”
You know, as a parent, this is about the point that you realize your life has taken a wrong turn. Because you will think back and remember a time when a buddy said, “Dude, why don’t we buy a van and drive around the country for the rest of our lives drinking beer and eating tacos?” As you’re faced with the prospect of a one-eyed lizard being nursed back to “health” in your house, you’ll wonder why you didn’t jump at that offer.
“Wait … his eye is literally bulging out of his face!” I point out, as if I’m the only one to notice this. “I’m not sure that’s a repair-able situation.”
“Yeah, dad,” my daughter replied. “But that’s the least of his problems. Look at the other side.”
Oh, GOOD LORD!
There was a darkened socket where another eye should have been. Not bulging … missing!
“He’s blind now. No way he’ll survive without us. We have to adopt him. He can’t make it out on his own. He’s going to need constant care for …”
And if this were a movie, the sound of her voice would echo and reverberate: “…THE REST OF HIS LIFE … Life … life …”
I had to pause to collect my thoughts
“Wait a minute,” I finally said. “Aren’t you 14 years old? I thought 14-year-olds didn’t care about the world? That they rebelled and stole the family car and crashed it into a tree? Can’t you just go do that? I mean, it’s going to be a lot cheaper in the long run!”
“Yes, speaking of which. We’re going to need a larger lizard aquarium than we have. I’ve been checking for heated ones with built-in running water on Amazon. They’re not cheap!”
“But you only found the lizard 5 minutes ago!!!” I said.
“There’s no time to delay,” she said.
The next day, Cha Cha showed up.
“You’re not going to believe this,” my daughter said, back from her dog walk. “There was another massacre out there today. Saved this little guy. He’s twitching and can only move sideways. On the plus-side, he appears to have both his eyes. But, we’re going to need another container … STAT!”
Sammy AND Cha Cha.
It’s been a little over a week in the Lizard Hospital. Anywhere else and the lizards would have “expired” by now. Shock or bulging eye-socket disease or parents tossing them into the bushes. But in my house, they’re thriving. Regaining their strength and starting to measure for drapes. My daughter feeds them the hamburger meat and cuts them fresh grass. She talks to them and shows them to friends on FaceTime.
I dream of white vans and tacos.
“We’re testing him tomorrow to see if he’s ready,” my daughter told me about Cha Cha.
“’Testing him,’” I said. “What the heck are you talking about? Just let him out.”
“NO!!!” she replied. “Don’t you watch ‘Animal Planet?’ You have to take this slow. Ease them back into their environs. See if they’re ready. This re-entry could take weeks!”
“I’M NOT BUYING MORE HAMBURGER!!!” I barked.
But there is, I guess, something kind of wonderful about it all. All creatures great and small. Caring for the little ones. Showing compassion and trying to help the critters of the world. The idea that everyone, and everything, deserves a chance. Why it has to be in my living room, I’m not sure, but I appreciate the sentiment. Something tugs at me. Something pulls me back to when she was younger. And how you have to admire someone showing that kind of care for something else.
Only, the hospital is quickly running out of beds. Any more massacres out on the sidewalk and we’ll be swamped. I dread her walking the dog anymore for what she might find. Maybe bigger critters – a bird with a broken wing. An opossum with gout. We definitely don’t have an aquarium big enough for that.
And we’re definitely running out of hamburger.