Around midnight last night (my resolution to sleep earlier not going so well actually) I was about to call it a night and climb in to bed when movement caught my eye near the ceiling. It was the lizard that had made itself at home in my apartment the last few nights and had eluded my somewhat half hearted attempts to locate it whenever it made the chirping sounds lizards here make.

Slowly I got back out of bed and made sure all the doors of the house were shut except for the main balcony door then I grabbed the lizard repellent (sometimes referred to as a broom) and set about the frustrating art of trying to shoo a lizard out of the house. For many people in this world shooing a lizard out of the house is not a common occurrence. I on the other hand am something of a master of lizard ushering.

Part of the problem with lizard ushering, for those of you that have never had to do it, is that they never run away from the broom lizard repellent as it approaches them from behind. They’ll run off to the side, up the wall, down the wall, back towards the bro…lizard repellent or in some cases make a giant leap of faith off the ceiling, land with a small splat on the floor and then race under the nearest piece of furniture. Basically anywhere but the direction in which you want it to actually go.

The process goes something like this: You start off being careful, trying your best not to hurt the little critter and gently maneuver the lizard repellent someway behind where it is lying and then slowly, slowly move it towards the lizard. At this point the lizard will see what’s going on and be working out the best trajectory to go anywhere but in the direction the lizard repellent is moving. So the process continues until it gets to the point where you are back where you started, the lizard is no closer to the door you want it to go out and your patience has worn razor thin.

At this point you become annoyed and the softly, softly approach goes out the window and more aggressive maneuvers are made. Now it becomes really fun because the lizard will leap, slip, slide, twizzle, slalom and sashay across the walls, floor, ceiling, small babies and furniture in a great big game of cat and mouse. Or human and lizard.

Generally in this game, the lizard invariable comes out on top as the human gives up in exasperation. However, like a man possessed I started jumping over the bed, hurtling around the room and thrashing at anything that moved with the lizard repellent, trying to get in to the mind of the hunted to gain wisdom and insight to its next flight of panic.

Eventually, and mostly because the laws of quantum say that given enough time anything can happen, the lizard ended up sort of where I wanted it, except it was hiding in the gap between the floor and the door. As I tried to gently move the door, the lizard simply followed the movement to remain hidden with just a small leg or a couple of toes pointing out. After series of ever more violent jerks to dislodge the reptile I had no choice but to ram the lizard repellent device in to the gap between the floor and the door to smoke the bugger out.

And how it shot out, like a bat out of hell on greased lightning it was gone in a flash before I could direct it to the open balcony door. Instead it made a beeline for the sofa in the living room and sought refuge underneath. Smelling blood and hot on the tail of my prey I threw the sofa aside like a toy and dived in after it. Totally stunned, the lizard froze with blind panic as it didn’t know which way to turn so I seized the opportunity to gently, but firmly, push it towards the balcony door with the lizard repellent device. Beaten and subdued it had no choice but to comply and slowly but surely it made its way to the door. When it realized freedom awaited on the other side it took the initiative to make its own way which is when I noticed that it was a whole lot shorter than it should have been, infact it was now about half the length it used to be.

Closer inspection revealed that it unfortunately acquired a number of war wounds including a wangy leg that seemed to go up and down rather than backwards and forwards and a tail that wasn’t so much injured as entirely missing.

Finally, the now much smaller lizard was out on the balcony and I had to go back, locate and dispose of the missing tail. Fortunately though it wasn’t too hard to find because it was literally thrashing around behind the sofa I had thrown across the room when the red mist had come down. I had to do a double take because it was like a worm wriggling around except it was definitely a lizard tail, completely separated from the body but making a determined bid to get on with things and lead a normal, bodiless life – and probably thinking about claiming disability benefits from the British government in the process.

A very freaked out Wikipedia search later and I discovered that shedding the tail is a defence mechanism employed by many lizards and in a few weeks it will grow another.

And that is the story of the lizard’s tail.

Here is a Youtube video of what the tail looked like when it was wriggling around, it’s not my video but it’s pretty much the same thing that happened.