I had one of those “Is it 5 o’clock yet?” days last week.

My morning started out as normal - ran my oldest son to his summer school class, then came home and cleaned up breakfast and got my youngest son and daughter, so as to head over to football camp. My daughter and I dropped her other brother off, the set out to retrieve my oldest from class. The next stop was the aforementioned Children’s Gift Shop in Northfield. With errands out of the way, we headed home until we needed to head back to football camp. The plan was to go straight to the pool. However, when we got home, my oldest went up to his room that he shares with his brother and discovered MooKitty sitting patiently next to the lizard cage, now tipped over sideways on the ground.

The lizards joined our family in a weak moment this spring when I got the phone call most parents dread - “My teacher says somebody has to take these lizards/mice/bunnies/turtles home…PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE!” My mom turned me down when I was a kid, so I was going to be different. Heh. Joke’s on me.

Upon inspection, I could only find two of our three reptile friends. I couldn’t tell if MooKitty was smirking or not, and now we’re running late to pick up my youngest son from camp. I’m frantically tearing apart their room, and manage to give myself a goose egg on the noggin in the process. So - now I’m near tears, we’re going to be late, and I don’t know what to do.

I grabbed my phone and called the vet to see if anoles are poisonous to cats. They get back on the line and say, “Maybe, call this number.” I dial it on my cell phone as I am speeding in the car to football camp. These jokesters want to charge me $60 to answer my question. Say wha? I get that you receive no funding and make your money this way, but $60 to tell me if something’s poisonous? I explain I don’t have a sick cat - yet - I just need to know if something’s poisonous. Sorry, that’ll be $60. I don’t think so, I tell them - I’ll take my chances with Ask.com and hang up.

Remember how we were going to go to the pool? In the frenzy, I forgot the towels. As it was, I was too worried about our cats. What if they ate it? What if they got sick? What if I had to clean up vomited lizard guts? EWWWW! So we returned home and in the process of cleaning the cage and then dusting the vents in the boys’ room (one expert online said to look “up” when searching for them, so in the process I noticed the vents, which were, frankly, nasty, so of course this OCD gal had to dust!), I see the third anole scurrying about on top of a dresser. I screamed, and the kids came running, and luckily I was able to catch it and get it back into its rightful place. Crisis averted. I knew there was NO WAY my oldest, who is naturally skittish, was going to sleep in his bed that night if he thought there was an escaped lizard running about, and I was literally sick over whether or not our cats were going to be ill.

Tell me - are you the type of parent who would have let the little buggers come home? I’m wondering what others would have done in the same situation. Talk back to me - leave a comment! I want to know if I’m the only one crazy enough to say yes to instant pets. And where you can get lizard food on the cheap!

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 9:56 am and is filed under Thoughts(t) , Kids(t) , Check this out!(t) . You can leave a response.