The skink is visiting downstairs. Skink belongs to my son. Skink freaks me out. I’m usually not confronted by this as my son keeps Skink in his room and I can avoid her. I grew up in the desert and lizards were small scuttling creatures, not big, blue tongued reptiles. I don’t mind the little lizards but Skink freaks me out. I know I said that earlier, but it bears repeating.
Skink shares a large glass terrarium with crickets. She’s supposed to eat the crickets but I think she likes the sound they make so she doesn’t eat them. Skink eats strained turkey baby food. Back to the crickets, our home often sounds like a meadow in spring. My son dumped out the terrarium and thought he had gotten rid of the crickets but they came back. I think Skink was saving some of the eggs in her hollow log for just this contingency.
So, my son brought Skink downstairs for an unknown reason and proceeded to freak me out by encouraging Skink to flick her blue tongue at me. Well, maybe he didn’t have to encourage Skink; I think the tongue flicking is instinctual. My daughter joined the fracas. Now Skink is climbing over my son’s shoulder and stretching out to climb on my daughter who at first thinks that’s ok. Unfortunately Skink’s claws go through her shirt and scratch. She pushes Skink back towards my son. Skink is finding all this rather distressful and has a small incontinent episode on my son.
“Eww, she peed on me” he grabs a kitchen towel and wipes himself off. My boyfriend now enters the scene.
“Damn, I just washed that” he mutters.
“Please don’t put that back with the clean towels” I ask.
“Well I just grabbed the first thing that was handy” protests my son.
“Fine, fine,” I say “Just don’t put it back on the towel rack!”
My son wraps the skink in the towel and rocks her like a baby.
“I don’t think Skinks really like that." I say. "They’re reptiles, not mammals and they don’t have the same need for closeness and comfort.”
“Skink likes it.” My son says.
How the heck you can tell what the damn lizard likes is beyond me…it doesn’t have expressions unless you count that flicking tongue. Ick.
Finally, wrapped like an infant, he takes her upstairs.
“I don’t think this is the kind of conversation you’d hear in any other apartment in this complex” says the boyfriend.
“Probably not anywhere in the known universe” I say.
I hope he doesn't put that towel back on the towel rack.