Godzilla

So, a pretty terrifying thing happened to me recently. The thing is, about 30 minutes after it happened, my husband had no recollection of the event whatsoever. I don't understand how this happens. Indulge me....listen to my tale.

It was a run-of-the-mill sort of evening. I headed towards the bathroom with my 2-1/2-year-old, almost 3-year-old, son in tow. I am sure he believes that I know a secret way out of the bathroom and that if he comes with me, I won't be able to escape. You moms know how this goes. So, there we were. My boy was standing right in front of me, going on about fish, or sharks, or dinos....or whatever the new thing was at the time. All of a sudden, I saw a little face under the bathroom door. Now, I have to say that my husband loves to tease, (don't they all?) and I pointed towards the little toy whatever-it-was so that my son could see what Papa was up to. "Look," I said, "Papa put one of your toys under the door!" No sooner had I said that....when it moved! It was a lizard!!!! In a matter of milliseconds, my little boy went from standing in front of me to pretty much standing on my head. It was rather like wearing a large hat. I screamed. My son screamed. I called out "Daddy!" and my husband came running. I'm sure he thought he was about to see blood or bones or something of that nature. He nearly stepped on the thing. By now, my son and I had barricaded ourselves in the bathtub. I brought the presence of the uninvited guest to my husband's attention, and he hurried off to get something to put it in. He instructed me to watch where it went, as by now, the thing was making a run for my son's room. I tenaciously stepped out of the tub. I went to my son's doorway and kept an eye on the scaly intruder. He was just disappearing into a pair of my son's pants that didn't quite make the laundry basket and were on the floor. My husband brought a small box that he coaxed it into. He took it outside; my son and I follwed a safe distance behind. He let it out into the grass, and we all went back inside.

I was so upset by the thing, that I had to seek refuge at my sisters' home. I told them the whole upsetting story, sparing no detail. Then, I told them that immediately after this happened, my husband all of a sudden remembered that when he left for work that morning, there was, in his words, "a huge lizard" right outside the front door. Shut up. You didn't think this was important enough to mention to me? Fantastic. My son and I had been playing outside that day, and I left the door open to "air" out the house. I had unwittingly invited what could be an entire lounge of lizards to move in.

After a while, I called my husband to let him know that I would be coming home soon. Before we said goodbye, I said, "I know this might sound silly, but I'm a little afraid to come home." He said, "Why?" I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle him. "Because of the lizard!" I said. "Oh," he said. "I forgot about that." It had been like 30 minutes.

And here all this time, my sisters and I were making big plans for extermination, an impromptu sleep-over, guard dogs, moving out the next day! I bravely told my sisters that I was going home. I was going to sleep fully clothed, with my pantlegs tucked into my socks, shoes on, a hat to cover my ears and head, with a blanket wrapped around my body like a cocoon, but I was going home. I faced my sentence with dignity. I went home. I did not sleep in my clothes with my pantlegs tucked in. There was no hat, no cocoon.

I'm pretty sure I will be receiving a medal soon. It will probably say, "For bravery in the face of intense fear, for actions commensurate with the most valiant of heroes, this medal is humbly awarded to....the lizard."