Of Lizards and Snakes

My friend was asked to find a lizard that our class could keep as a pet. We would keep it in a glass cage, let it be our mascot, blame it for our problems, all the things a good pet lizard is for. So, living in a desert, we thought we’d go find a lizard.

As we started walking, I noticed how many lizards there were. Some ran when we came, but others seemed excited to see us. Some had spikes, some had horns. Others were fast, or changed color, or looked like rocks. There were some really cool lizards, but my friend said “No, I’ve seen lizards like this before. I don’t want one of those.” So we kept walking.

Then he stopped dead in his tracks, so abruptly that I nearly ran into him. “That’s it. That’s the one I want.”

Peeking around his shoulder, I saw a snake curled up in the middle of the road.

“That’s not a lizard, that’s a snake.”

“Who told you that? The MEDIA?!” he retorted, and he took a step toward a snake.

Friends don’t let friends get bitten by snakes, so I grabbed his arm and tried to be reasonable.

“Lizards usually have legs. Snakes usually have rattles. Just listen to him; you can hear its rattle. It’s a snake.”

“No it isn’t,” is all he said.

I began to plead with my friend. “Really; hear that rattle? That’s his way of saying ‘I’m a snake. I’d like to bite you with my “yuge” teeth.’ Just listen to the sound it keeps making. It’s really a snake.”

I must have hit a nerve with my friend who was slipping further and further from reality.

“Welp, at least it’s not an ALIGATOR!” he yelled.

The absurdity was both alarming and intriguing.

“Where did that come from?” I asked.

“Well, a snake is so much better than an alligator. Alligators kill eagles with their teeth and their tails and their swimming and their existing and stuff.”

“But I didn’t say anything about an alligator.”

“And why didn’t you! What aren’t you talking about how evil the alligator is? Media bias…” he trailed off with some inaudible rambling that I couldn’t make out.

“Do you already know the alligator is dangerous?” I asked.

“Yes”

“Then why do I need to talk about it? We both know we don’t want an alligator, but you’re about to pick up that snake that is still trying to tell you he’s a snake.”

Unable perhaps to grasp that we weren’t on opposite sides and I was trying to help him, he responded “Well, if you don’t pick up a snake, you’re picking up an alligator. So if you don’t let me pick up this snake, you’re helping the alligator get to our class. And if a gator gets to class then it will eat everyone and then it will eat the world and the solar system and then take all your stuff and kill all your friends and it coughs in a really suspicious way like how you would expect a possessed alligator to cough and I hear from really good sources that alligators live in area 51 and built the pyramids!”

And all the while the snake, scared by the commotion around it, got louder and louder.

“Look” I tried to say, “I’m not advocating for an alligator in class. I just think there are plenty of lizards and I’d rather we just find a lizard. There are even some cool red ones over there…”

“Bears don’t like alligators,” he interrupted.

“Bears?”

“Yeah, I like bears. I like bears a lot, and they don’t like alligators.”

“Is that a red-herring because you don’t want to talk about the snake?”

“It’s a red bear. Look, we have the chance to make the classroom great again!”

“The classroom is already a great place, and would be great if we could just get a lizard that isn’t a threat to us.”

“See! I knew you wanted an alligator!”

I knew at this point that our time was pretty well spent, but in one last effort to be reasonable I said calmly, “Snakes are dangerous because their fangs give more than just a bite. They’re filled with venom, the kind of venom that gets inside of you. The kind of venom that attacks you at your core, that shuts you down and makes you numb. It’s the kind of venom that is difficult to survive. I worry about people getting bitten by that snake because snakes bite and spread venom. That’s what they do, and it’s what the snake has been trying to show you ever since we got here.”

He looked me in the eyes and set his jaw firmly before he said “You pious hypocrite. I bet you don’t even know who God is. I hope you join a different class. You just can’t handle the truth that snakes are better than alligators.”

He stepped forward and bent toward the snake who, without hesitation, struck fiercely on my friend’s reaching hand.

“It’s just a bite. Bites don’t matter.”

Unable to help the unwilling, I turned away, and as I walked I continued to hear the rattle shake and the snake strike, my friend crying out a little less each time it happened.

I found a little yellow lizard that I liked and brought it back to class. It didn’t try to eat or bite anyone. It was a good pet. I’m not really sure what happened to my friend.