Lizard Hotels: A Love at First Sight Story

My children catch lizards. It’s like they’re pulling grass, so quick and easy that I am never not surprised.

A few days ago, they came to me after eight minutes outside. “We caught 12!” they crowed, tipping the bucket for me to see.

Sometimes the tails come off. They never manhandle the little guys. It seems the tails are ripe for the picking. They drop and wiggle on the ground. I can’t watch. Even when I imagine it, I feel quivery in my stomach.

They made a special hotel for the lizards with old bricks and bits of moss and maple tree gumballs and sections of 2-inch PVC I use in my garden. A squashed pinecone was a couch.

They try to feed the lizards, but they seem to hate roly poly bugs for lunch.

The lizards kept escaping. (I’m sure there will be some 3-star Yelp reviews on the poor check-out process and absent housekeeping.)

They name the lizards, of course.

“Tuckster is so cute and tiny.”
“God, I love him so much.”
“Look at him. LOOK AT HIM!”
“He’s better than all the others.”
“Give him the besssst spot.”
“He’s the cutest everrrrrr,” their syllables get longer as they adore him.

I laid in the grass with my eyes closed, listening, assuming he was a first catch, that their fixation had grown over time and through careful comparison.

They cooed and cuddled him. They laid him down and build another turret in the hotel—the honeymoon suite.

“What’s a honeymoon?” one asked.
I explained.
“If you get married again, where will we go together?” they asked.
I explained more.
“He’s gone!” one shrieked.

Crying. More shrieking. Outrage. And I learned they had caught him just five minutes before.

Who am I to judge? It was obviously love at first sight. I’ve felt that way before.

And if everything burned down in an instant…if war came to our backyard, it’s these silly, small things I would miss. Lizard hotels. And questions. And Tuckster love at first sight. And the innocence of peace.