The Lizard Habitat
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost
Last weekend I visited with Son #5 who lives in Boise, Idaho. He has four kids, a lovely home, an exceptional wife, and a generally high-quality life. There was a time when I feared that would never be the case.
Because I had eight kids, I lived in the laundry room. Over time, I developed a system to manage the hundreds of loads of laundry I did each year. Every kid had a basket, and the plan was that I’d fold their clothes from the dryer, then they’d transfer the clean clothes to the drawers in which each stack belonged. One day when Son #5 was about six, I asked him to put away his rapidly rising stack of clean pajamas. He told me that drawer was full, so he’d just leave them in his basket. Irritated, I headed to his bedroom for an inspection.
Turned out he was right. His drawer was full—with about three inches of sand and half-a-dozen lizards crawling around. He was quite proud of them.
After I had calmed down, we had a nice little chat about the environmental impact of a pajama drawer on lizards, and he reluctantly agreed that they’d likely be happier in the garden where he had originally captured them. It took him considerably longer to trap and relocate his reptile friends than it did me to vacuum and scrub the sand out of the drawer, mostly because his efforts involved a good deal of giggling as the skittish little creatures raced out of the open drawer and zoomed under beds, chests of drawers, and dirty laundry. Eventually, the pajamas were restored to their intended home.
I ask you–is it any wonder that mothers have to cause to worry about whether or not their children will ever be able to hold down a job?