It’s summer, and that means a home needs to be found for my daughter’s classroom pet. Isabella’s teacher has generously agreed to make a schedule and let us parents share in the responsibility, so nobody ends up having to feed live crickets to a lizard for three months straight. Right now it’s our turn, and boy, are we having fun.
Actually, the crickets are not so bad. The parent before us has dropped enough of them in the cage that we don’t have to worry about handling any for at least a few days. Apparently, they need to be alive, because Lizzie doesn’t eat anything that won’t move. Also, the crickets need to be coated in some vitamin, which is done by adding powder to the bag and shaking it like mad. I guess that makes it reason 1,980,540 I’m happy I’m not a cricket. Tough life, that.
It starts to dawn on me that lizard-care is complicated, when I see the amount of paperwork that Lizzie travels with. There’s no avoiding it; I have to read it all because my husband refuses, and Isabella already knows everything there is to know about anoles. At least, that’s what she thinks; this is ‘her’ pet, and she bosses us around like a high school football coach on the night before the big game. It becomes so annoying that I send her out of the room and forbid her contact with Liz until further notice.
“The anole is inexpensive to purchase,” it says in the care packet, “but not cheap to maintain.” I don’t worry about it, because we received all the food, she already has a cage, and how expensive can those crickets be? I soon discover they’re not talking about food.
I’m in the kitchen when I hear a loud crash, followed by a frantic scream, and an “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” which is my son Mendel’s version of a confession. He’s messed with the heat lamp, burned his finger, and dropped it on the floor. The bulb, of course, is broken; why wouldn’t it be? Although his burnt finger is enough of a lesson in and of itself, I still lecture him for the second time on why he’s not allowed to touch, and give him a time out to boot.
Meanwhile, my husband goes to buy a new lamp and complains loudly about the price.
The little buggers cost $5, which is quite a lot for one little light, but at least the box says they last two years. Obviously, the box has never met Mendel, because within 24 hours, he drops the lamp for the second time. “I did it again!” he tells me, and a sadder boy has never existed. He wails and runs up the stairs to his room, the message being there’s no need to punish him, he’ll punish himself. His sister may know all about lizards, but Mendel knows pathos.
He forgives himself eventually, we get another bulb, and this time we place the light firmly out of his reach. “I will not touch the lamp again,” he says, “because I can’t reach the lamp.” Which makes everyone, Lizzie included, feel a whole lot safer. Who knew that the biggest danger to a lizard in our house would be a four-year-old boy?
Wait; don’t answer that.
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