Sneaky Lizard Update!
He has not been spotted at my house, but the other morning when I was leaving in the early hours to go to Algebra class, the clarion call had apparently been heard, because there were about four types of lizard on my front porch. I ran on my tiptoes out of the house, squealing like a little girl under my breath so as not to wake up M2, whose window I was right outside. And as I was squealing my way to my car, I ran face-first directly into a giant spiderweb. Sometimes, I think God put me on Earth to entertain Him. If so, I hope the resultant gyrations satisfied my purpose on Earth this week.
Algebra Class Update!
I got a 44 on my most recent algebra test. In my defense, my new baby niece was born last Thursday, and I spent Wednesday night through Friday evening in South Texas, staying with my 13-month-old nephew while my sister-in-law was in the hospital. So that put a crimp in my studying time. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I don't know what the rest of the class's excuse is, though, because a 44 was the fourth highest grade in the class. The highest grade was a 66 (two people had that), and the next-highest was a 53. Then there was me. I should elaborate on this.
I totally knew I was bombing the test while I was bombing it. I could not get my brain to function, and promptly had a huge panic attack in the middle of the test. I finally stopped torturing myself and turned in my test without even trying a bunch of the problems. And then I immediately went home and cried in the bed until it was time to get the kids from school, skipping Radio and TV entirely. Which was actually okay, because the Radio and TV guy didn't care. So I felt guilty all day Monday for no reason. This has actually happened to me before - in 2000, when I took this class the first time. I bombed a test and left the testing center in tears, only to run into my high school algebra teacher in the hallway (NO LIE), who asked me what was wrong and then gave me a hug when I told her and said "Well, you always were a mess when it came to tests." Nice to know I made a good impression on you, Miss Cooley. Turned out that everybody in that class bombed that test, too, so she curved it. I'm wondering now if maybe it was the same part of the subject matter. Maybe rational expressions just are not for me.
The Final Exam is on May 9th. Our instructor passed out the review packet today, and I feel pretty doggone good about it. There are only about three rational expression questions, so I should be just fine. I'm still going to study like a madwoman, and I sort of want to get a hotel room for the weekend so I can just hole up with my dear friend algebra and have a weekend-long tryst that will result in a good grade. After the test, I'll have two weeks (srsly) until Intermediate Algebra begins. And then in the Fall semester, College Algebra. So two more semesters of this. Le sigh.
Punctuation Matters!
It's amazing what a difference a hyphen can make.
"I am so sick of these stupid-ass hairs getting in my mouth."
OR
"I am so sick of these stupid ass-hairs getting in my mouth."
Misplace the hyphen at your peril.
Showing posts with label sneaky lizard. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sneaky lizard. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
Update on the Sneaky Lizard
So, the last time we spoke of the Sneaky Fuckin' Lizard, he was hiding in Spike's tire on his car.
A few days later, Spike was driving from work to lunch and noticed that the lizard was on the hood of his car. And was still there when he came out of lunch to go back to work. Somewhere between lunch and work, the lizard took flight and landed God Knows Where.
Well, everybody at Spike's work knows where, now. A couple of days after that, he was doing work at the end of the day in his office when he heard a girl scream "OH MY GOD!" in the breakroom. She then appeared in his doorway and said "You have to come down here and see this."
And there, in the middle of the breakroom floor, was the lizard. I'm pretty sure he gave Spike the finger before the girl scooped him up in two styrofoam cups and let him outside. (Can a lizard give the finger? Would it have to be the claw? Or worse, the toenail?)
A few days after that, Spike was walking between two buildings and there, in the middle of the sidewalk, fronting, was the lizard. And he has friends. He has either started or been recruited to a Reptile Gang. Given his inherent sneakiness, I'm betting that he started it and recruited. I wonder how lizards get jumped in. Was his stunt in the breakroom part of his initiation?
Spike is keeping an eye out. I'm betting that in a couple of weeks, he's going to come out to the car and it's going to be up on blocks, completely cleared out of anything of value. I wouldn't put it past that fuckin' lizard.
A few days later, Spike was driving from work to lunch and noticed that the lizard was on the hood of his car. And was still there when he came out of lunch to go back to work. Somewhere between lunch and work, the lizard took flight and landed God Knows Where.
Well, everybody at Spike's work knows where, now. A couple of days after that, he was doing work at the end of the day in his office when he heard a girl scream "OH MY GOD!" in the breakroom. She then appeared in his doorway and said "You have to come down here and see this."
And there, in the middle of the breakroom floor, was the lizard. I'm pretty sure he gave Spike the finger before the girl scooped him up in two styrofoam cups and let him outside. (Can a lizard give the finger? Would it have to be the claw? Or worse, the toenail?)
A few days after that, Spike was walking between two buildings and there, in the middle of the sidewalk, fronting, was the lizard. And he has friends. He has either started or been recruited to a Reptile Gang. Given his inherent sneakiness, I'm betting that he started it and recruited. I wonder how lizards get jumped in. Was his stunt in the breakroom part of his initiation?
Spike is keeping an eye out. I'm betting that in a couple of weeks, he's going to come out to the car and it's going to be up on blocks, completely cleared out of anything of value. I wouldn't put it past that fuckin' lizard.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
The Story of the Sneaky Lizard, Part 2
Fast forward more than a week. To this past Sunday.
I ran out of Diet Dr. Pepper on Sunday morning. This is a huge tragedy for me. Especially because I had spent four hours working on algebra homework and did not feel like going to the corner store to get more. But too bad for me. If I wanted my caffeine high, I had to go.
The corner store is less than a mile from my house. If I were a less lazy person, I would walk there. Instead, I'm a more lazy person, so I drive there.
So, off I go. I go inside, get what I'm there for (and more besides, because it's the corner store, man, and they have Star Crunch!), and I come back to my car.
When I get in, I see something that's vaguely the same color as my car on my hood. I squint to see it better, when suddenly it turns and fixes me with an evil, malevolent eye.
It's that sneaky fucking lizard.
It is a damn good thing that I didn't see it before I got in the car, because I would still be standing on the sidewalk in front of the corner store, doing my best impression of Jay and/or Silent Bob. Probably Silent Bob because I'm fat like that, and also I'm pretty sure that seeing that lizard on the hood of my car and trying to make itself blend in with fire-engine-red paint would have short-circuited my brain, making speech impossible for the rest of my life.
I decide to drive on. In the hopes that I could get up to a good speed and the lizard would fly off my car entirely, possibly to be crushed under the wheels of whoever might be behind me.
This does not work. Instead, the lizard gets pissed off and starts leaping at my face. Thank God there was a windshield in between me and him because if he had succeeded in leaping on my face, I would have driven my car through the nearest house and the tragedy would have been horrific and in the newspaper.
Rationally, I know that there's a windshield between myself and this trespassing little bastard, but I'm not thinking rationally. So I start screaming. I'm driving down the road and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. People who live on my street and know who I am are witnessing me driving down the street, screaming at something they probably can't see, considering that he's still trying to blend in with my paint. Sneaky motherfucker.
I pull into the driveway and decide that obviously I can't just get out - he's going to leap on me! And his toenails will scrabble on my skin! And then I can never go inside ever, because I'll have a lizard on me! So I did what any forward-thinking woman would do. I called my husband.
And he did not answer.
By this time, my next-door neighbor stopped raking his yard and started watching me because he realized that I had been in the driveway for probably a minute at that point, with absolutely no intention of getting out of my car.
The lizard is still there. Eyeballing me. Probably trying to figure out how to get into the car itself so that it could put its toenails on me.
I realize suddenly that I'm still screaming obscenities at the hood of my car. More specifically, at the lizard, but I'm pretty sure my neighbor can't see him, now that I think about it.
I start honking the horn so that my husband will come out. He comes out pretty quickly, all things considered, but my two kids come out with him, so that they can witness the abject hysteria that is their mother.
My husband comes out and says: "Oh, hey! It's that lizard!"
It's that lizard? You *knew* about this?
"Oh yeah, he rode on the hood of the car to Subway and back when the kids and I went to get lunch."
He sidles over to my side of the car, making the international signal for rolling down the window.
"NO!" I scream. "IF I ROLL DOWN THE WINDOW, HE'LL PUT HIS TOENAILS ON ME!"
Understandably, this befuddles Spike.
"GET HIM OFF MY CAR!"
Spike sort of waves a hand at the lizard, and the lizard obligingly hops down and finds refuge in the wheel of Spike's car. Which happens to be right next to where I have to walk if I get out of the car.
I decide right then that I'm going to become a car hobo. I've slept in my car before. It's not that bad. I am never getting out again until somebody can show me the lifeless body of the reptile.
I scream this through my rolled-up window. My children begin to cry. I have to get out of the car. I grab the bag from the corner store and sprint to the front door. I try to explain to my husband that that is the self-same lizard that menaced me a week earlier.
He says: "The exact one? Nah. Probably it's a different one."
There are two of them?
You know, I like my house. Maybe I'll stay in here. Forever. With all the doors and windows shut. And maybe locked in case lizards can learn how to open windows.
I ran out of Diet Dr. Pepper on Sunday morning. This is a huge tragedy for me. Especially because I had spent four hours working on algebra homework and did not feel like going to the corner store to get more. But too bad for me. If I wanted my caffeine high, I had to go.
The corner store is less than a mile from my house. If I were a less lazy person, I would walk there. Instead, I'm a more lazy person, so I drive there.
So, off I go. I go inside, get what I'm there for (and more besides, because it's the corner store, man, and they have Star Crunch!), and I come back to my car.
When I get in, I see something that's vaguely the same color as my car on my hood. I squint to see it better, when suddenly it turns and fixes me with an evil, malevolent eye.
It's that sneaky fucking lizard.
It is a damn good thing that I didn't see it before I got in the car, because I would still be standing on the sidewalk in front of the corner store, doing my best impression of Jay and/or Silent Bob. Probably Silent Bob because I'm fat like that, and also I'm pretty sure that seeing that lizard on the hood of my car and trying to make itself blend in with fire-engine-red paint would have short-circuited my brain, making speech impossible for the rest of my life.
I decide to drive on. In the hopes that I could get up to a good speed and the lizard would fly off my car entirely, possibly to be crushed under the wheels of whoever might be behind me.
This does not work. Instead, the lizard gets pissed off and starts leaping at my face. Thank God there was a windshield in between me and him because if he had succeeded in leaping on my face, I would have driven my car through the nearest house and the tragedy would have been horrific and in the newspaper.
Rationally, I know that there's a windshield between myself and this trespassing little bastard, but I'm not thinking rationally. So I start screaming. I'm driving down the road and I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. People who live on my street and know who I am are witnessing me driving down the street, screaming at something they probably can't see, considering that he's still trying to blend in with my paint. Sneaky motherfucker.
I pull into the driveway and decide that obviously I can't just get out - he's going to leap on me! And his toenails will scrabble on my skin! And then I can never go inside ever, because I'll have a lizard on me! So I did what any forward-thinking woman would do. I called my husband.
And he did not answer.
By this time, my next-door neighbor stopped raking his yard and started watching me because he realized that I had been in the driveway for probably a minute at that point, with absolutely no intention of getting out of my car.
The lizard is still there. Eyeballing me. Probably trying to figure out how to get into the car itself so that it could put its toenails on me.
I realize suddenly that I'm still screaming obscenities at the hood of my car. More specifically, at the lizard, but I'm pretty sure my neighbor can't see him, now that I think about it.
I start honking the horn so that my husband will come out. He comes out pretty quickly, all things considered, but my two kids come out with him, so that they can witness the abject hysteria that is their mother.
My husband comes out and says: "Oh, hey! It's that lizard!"
It's that lizard? You *knew* about this?
"Oh yeah, he rode on the hood of the car to Subway and back when the kids and I went to get lunch."
He sidles over to my side of the car, making the international signal for rolling down the window.
"NO!" I scream. "IF I ROLL DOWN THE WINDOW, HE'LL PUT HIS TOENAILS ON ME!"
Understandably, this befuddles Spike.
"GET HIM OFF MY CAR!"
Spike sort of waves a hand at the lizard, and the lizard obligingly hops down and finds refuge in the wheel of Spike's car. Which happens to be right next to where I have to walk if I get out of the car.
I decide right then that I'm going to become a car hobo. I've slept in my car before. It's not that bad. I am never getting out again until somebody can show me the lifeless body of the reptile.
I scream this through my rolled-up window. My children begin to cry. I have to get out of the car. I grab the bag from the corner store and sprint to the front door. I try to explain to my husband that that is the self-same lizard that menaced me a week earlier.
He says: "The exact one? Nah. Probably it's a different one."
There are two of them?
You know, I like my house. Maybe I'll stay in here. Forever. With all the doors and windows shut. And maybe locked in case lizards can learn how to open windows.
The Story of the Sneaky Lizard, Part 1
Spring Break week had some really, really lovely weather. I opened all the windows in my house almost every day, including the big sliding glass door that leads to the patio.
On the first Friday, I worked half a day(ish) and came home to wait for my brother and nephew to arrive. I opened up the sliding glass door and slid the screen door shut to keep the cats in. Something fell at my feet.
It was a lizard.
Now, I don't like reptiles. I have deep-rooted reasons for my hatred of snakes, and less rational reasons for the hatred of lizards and such. (Except, I will say this: toenails. Little, scrabbling toenails. Possibly on my skin. See? You hate them too.) I don't mind frogs and toads (no toenails that I know of), but I hate reptiles. I hate even going into the reptile house at the Zoo, but I do it because that's how much I love my children.
This lizard was a skinny little thing, probably eight or nine inches from nose to tail. He was dark green and he had evil, malevolent eyes. He was such a surprise that I screamed. He jumped. At me. I screamed again.
I don't think I have mentioned: I have a giant cat. I have a cat who is half-black, half-Siamese. He can put his back feet on the floor and reach his front feet all the way up on the kitchen cabinet. He has to weigh at least twenty pounds. And he loves me irrationally and devotedly.
When I screamed, he came running.
At that point, I realized that if I didn't get this reptile out of the house now, I was going to have lizard guts all over the floor and also probably puke from when my cat's pampered little stomach tried to process lizard. So instead of screaming hysterically at the cosmos as I had been, I started screaming at the lizard.
"RUN!! IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE!!"
I shoved the screen door open and kept screaming at him till he finally decided that going out the open door was probably the best way to get away from my ear-splitting screeches (assuming lizards have ears), and he left. I slammed the screen door after him. My cat was pissed. This asshole little lizard decided to show the cat who was boss and sat on my back porch in plain view for a full fifteen minutes. The next time I went to look for him, he was gone.
That should have been the last I saw of the lizard.
On the first Friday, I worked half a day(ish) and came home to wait for my brother and nephew to arrive. I opened up the sliding glass door and slid the screen door shut to keep the cats in. Something fell at my feet.
It was a lizard.
Now, I don't like reptiles. I have deep-rooted reasons for my hatred of snakes, and less rational reasons for the hatred of lizards and such. (Except, I will say this: toenails. Little, scrabbling toenails. Possibly on my skin. See? You hate them too.) I don't mind frogs and toads (no toenails that I know of), but I hate reptiles. I hate even going into the reptile house at the Zoo, but I do it because that's how much I love my children.
This lizard was a skinny little thing, probably eight or nine inches from nose to tail. He was dark green and he had evil, malevolent eyes. He was such a surprise that I screamed. He jumped. At me. I screamed again.
I don't think I have mentioned: I have a giant cat. I have a cat who is half-black, half-Siamese. He can put his back feet on the floor and reach his front feet all the way up on the kitchen cabinet. He has to weigh at least twenty pounds. And he loves me irrationally and devotedly.
When I screamed, he came running.
At that point, I realized that if I didn't get this reptile out of the house now, I was going to have lizard guts all over the floor and also probably puke from when my cat's pampered little stomach tried to process lizard. So instead of screaming hysterically at the cosmos as I had been, I started screaming at the lizard.
"RUN!! IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE!!"
I shoved the screen door open and kept screaming at him till he finally decided that going out the open door was probably the best way to get away from my ear-splitting screeches (assuming lizards have ears), and he left. I slammed the screen door after him. My cat was pissed. This asshole little lizard decided to show the cat who was boss and sat on my back porch in plain view for a full fifteen minutes. The next time I went to look for him, he was gone.
That should have been the last I saw of the lizard.
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