In the past few days I have racked up an unusual list of events.
Hear, hear...
Story #1: I backed into a trailer bed while exiting my driveway on Tuesday morning.
First reaction: awesome. The trailer was parked unreasonably close (obviously), leaving me no option but to make a 30 point turn or to collide directly into the trailer. I chose the latter. Eh, boy. Luckily, my catastrophe went unnoticed somehow. There were no angry landscapers running toward me with growling weedwackers or glistening clippers in hand. My next move would be to complain to the board association of this inconvenient weekly obstacle, but my neighbor Steve somehow convinced these landscapers to cut our grass because of our end unit location which dips right into generic community territory, leaving us free of landscaping responsibility. So you see my dilemma. Potential future car damage vs. gleaming beautifully manicured grass. I hate my life.
Story #2: Tuesday night (yes, the same day as the accident), my roommate tells me to look out for a little lizard running around on our bedroom floor. "Oh, really?" I said casually, maintaining a mildly alarmed but more concerned reaction when in reality my whole body had broken into a full sweat. She said her mom had spotted one and to just be on the lookout for it. Yeah, sure, no problem, just a lizard, walking around, harmless, lost, on my back biting me while I'm sleeping or peeing on my face, no big deal.
The next morning, I go to the bathroom, swing open the door, and there, flat on the white carpet is, what I think is a black gecko felt cut-out but of course is the lizard my roommate had warned me about the night before. It's not moving; it's completely still, which surprised me as most lizard creatures disappear after a blink of an eye. I'm ashamed to say what happened in the next ten minutes.
There was a lot of staring, then pacing, then more staring, then my brain perked a bit and I began eyeing every object in the surrounding area to see how I could catch this predator. The weird thing was that if it did move at all (cue full sweat again), it was in slow motion type speed. Completely abnormal for this kind of species.
After some more staring/panicking/sweating, I finally decided on my weapon of choice: the shopping bag. Forever 21 by the way. I inched the yellow plastic bag right into the lizard's path so that it eventually stepped right into it. I quickly scooped it up and booked it downstairs to the deck door. I didn't dare look inside it for fear it would be that exact moment the lizard would run up my arm and latch onto my face because of course that would happen. I laid the bag down quickly on the deck's surface, expecting the lizard to shoot out of there like Speedy Gonzalez (ole!). I backed away and shut the glass door as it would be just my luck that Speedy Gonzalez's escape would be right back into my house. I decided to leave SG to his escape route and finally went to work.
When I came home eight hours later, I fully expected the lizard to be gone, reunited with his lizard friends, probably making fun of my painfully slow reaction to his unannounced visit. The bag was still there but had shifted 90 degrees clockwise. I boldly picked up the bag and there he was: shriveled and dead. I emptied him out on the deck table, examining his head that looked like it was trying to make a U-turn towards his tail. I wondered what went wrong. Where I went wrong. I didn't think about him again until it poured later that night and I thought how the water just swept him away somewhere (probably just to the first floor). Hasta la vista Speedy G. Hasta la vista.
Story #3: My spankin' new roommate moved in on Wednesday. Like any good roommate I welcomed her, chatted about jobs and life and future and whatnot, and she eventually retreated to her basement room while I headed to my 3rd floor bedroom.
The next morning, she came into the family room and I asked, "How did you sleep last night?" (As it was her first night sleeping over.)
"Great," she replied.
"Could you hear a lot of noise up here?" I asked. Her face remained in a blank smile.
"Like, did you hear a lot of foosteps and stuff from up here," I tried again. Still nothing. "I mean, it's not like we're stomping up here but just didn't know if we bothered you." Maybe she got it?
"You mean...." she began. "Did I listen to...what?"
"Could you hear anything while you were sleeping, like us being loud up here and you being in the basement," I said more firmly, loudly; I had started to sweat (classic).
"Oh," she looked thoughtful. "No I can't hear anything down there."
"Oh, good," I smiled, which was true in the sense that oh, good I'm so glad this conversation is over and I don't have to talk to you anymore. "Sorry that was such a painful way of asking," I laughed, probably too forcefully. And that is why I'm never talking to anyone ever again.
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