The Lizard State

I live in Florida, without a doubt. The weather, although hot and sticky in most days, is perfect for the influx of tourists. The state boasts a host of top-name attractions, such as Universal Orlando and Walt Disney World. Besides all the family fun and beach parties the state has to offer, it has a dark side to it in the case of my view on a particular part of its fauna. I have to admit that my biggest pet peeves are anoles.

This is an anole – small, but really unsettling to me if indoors, outside of cages. (Image via Wikipedia)

Yes, those small, annoying little lizards can innervate me, especially if uncaged, indoors. Going to the bathroom is like bearing Jesus’s cross because I might even spot one or two of them. My lizard phobia commenced when I was vacationing in the Philippines with family during my 1993-1994 Pasko break. I lived in New Jersey at that time, in the northern part where lizards are rare. The brown-out we had on one day was the first time I ever saw a lizard, but it was larger than an anole, probably a Tokay gecko.

Spring Break 1996 was emotionally out of whack too. I vacationed with my grandmother to see my (now ex-) cousins in the Tampa Bay Area, in their former duplex in Thonotosassa. I went to the bathroom and saw that reptile, colored in green, red, and yellow. I became very horrified at that apparition.

My high point of my lizard phobia came when I lived in a small country home in Riverview, Florida, the dining room was riddled with anoles, crawling everywhere with reckless abandon and fraying my nerves. On the day of the move to my current home in Dover, I saw an anole in the SUV my late father previously owned, and when we came into the new house, I was about to go to the bathroom. But it appeared again on the roll of toilet paper. I’m glad I’m out of this house where more lizards had annoyed me in middle school.

Of course, I’m not the only one in the world scared of certain lizards. In one talk show, the host exposed a woman from Louisiana (another state riddled with lizards thanks to its bayous, swamps, and subtropical climate) who feels my pain. A morning musume from Japan exposed a slew of female contestants who stuck their heads in the holes of a tank, where the hosts of that show placed a medium-sized lizard.

I really don’t know if the creators of the morning musume would do a sequel to this fear-inducing game. Maybe they would place them in a room brimming with small lizards, mostly those hated anoles. I certainly don’t want to partake in a game where I have to endure a room full of lizards or have my head in a tank with one crawling about. That phobia makes me think that I should have lived near Paterson, New Jersey, instead of living in Florida, where lizards, namely anoles, are vital to the state as do Disney Characters, both face and atmosphere.