[Note: I found this old journal entry from a while back. I'm posting this and dedicating it to my friend Sarah, who has lizard-phobia. Sarah, I hope this blog post helps you learn new tactics and strategies on how to kill lizards.]
Time of Death: ~10:00 PM EST – June 27, 2008
Location: My shower
I need to get something off my chest: I killed a lizard yesterday. But see, this wasn’t just ANY kind of lizard. This lizard looked poisonous (according to my ancient subscription to the National Geographic) and wiggly and… I get chills just thinking about the creature.
Anyway, my instinctive murder skills told me to reach for the shower/tub cleaner spray. This weapon, although a bit weak and not as dramatic as one would hope (as far as unplanned murders go), was ehhh… toxicating. I figured that the amount of ammonia I could spray on the lizard from a distance would make this a quick and painless death. Apparently not. I almost died just breathing the same air as the slimy thing. Conclusion: a shower/tub cleaner spray is not pain-free. Try to reach for something else if you want to kill a lizard in your shower.
I literally sprayed at the sneaky little shower invader about a thousand and one times. But the conniving little reptile just kept surfacing the bubbles of the shower cleaner spray. Sigh. Ok. My next move was to turn on the hot water.
Hot water is a weak weapon too. I mean, one would think that hot water burns fast and deep. But the scaly creature survived! My goodness. My futile attempts at murder just made me desperate. I decided against the shower until my brother could pull the squirmy thing out-which he did, eventually. But in the meantime, I kept spraying at the lizard until miraculously, it stopped writhing.
But oh… then came the guilt. I called my friend and confessed. Of course, to most people this would be an insignificant act of murder. But I felt like I tortured the creature, that, according to Latin American culture, is a bringer of good luck. (Well, bad luck for me, I guess. Then again, do you really want a potentially poisonous lizard roaming around your house? Exactly.) I confessed but still got goosebumps at the thought of seeing the lizard again.
So think twice before killing an innocent little creature. You might not be able to sleep soundly… I’m telling you: guilt is an awful feeling. And, to all you lizard-lovers out there, I think that the lizard is in a much better place now. The world is just too evil anyway.
Conclusion: Don’t try this on your own. Try to call somebody to kill the lizard for you. That way, you don’t have to deal with the guilt or the potentially bad luck.
