Good Morning Lizard

Good Morning Lizard

  My dad leaves the light on in the kitchen above the sink day and night. He doesn’t like to get up in the middle of the night to get a drink of water or a snack and have to look for the light switch. So the light stays on. There is also a window right above the sink looking out into the back yard. It’s the only window in the house where the blinds stay open all the time. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is go run some water to make my coffee. Every morning I look up and there he is. My good morning lizard is always there on the screen looking at me serenely. I guess he’s discovered that this is a good hunting ground for all the insects at night that are attracted to the light. He looks fat and happy. I always tell him good morning and wonder if he can see me or hear me from out there. Or am I just some shadowy blur to him like a passing cloud in the sky? Does he know I’m there and regarding him just as curiously as he seems to be regarding me? Or is he just thinking that he sure wishes he could get in there and wrap his quick tongue around that big fat tasty looking bug? Does he even think at all? Or does he simply react to outside stimuli? Lizards don’t have big brains. It is said that their only reaction to everything, if it has one at all, is limited to the following…eat, attack, run away, or mate. 

  Did you know that the part of our brain right above our spinal column is often referred to as the “Lizard Brain”? It is thought to be responsible for those same reactions in us. It tells us when we need to eat, attack, run away, or mate. If so, my lizard brain doesn’t always seem to function as it should. I often eat when I’m not really hungry. Sometimes I’m just bored or I start craving something even though I just ate an hour ago. The part that’s supposed to tell my when to attack or run away is a little confused these days too. It knows I can’t run anymore, but also knows that attacking is not a very good option either. And as far as mating…well let’s just say that part never did have good timing and leave it at that. So I guess it’s a good thing that my brain comes equipped with pieces that have “higher functions”. Or put another way, the part of my brain sitting on top of the lizard brain had to take over a long time ago. It was a bloodless coup, but I’m sure it came just in time and was completely necessary. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be here right now. If it hadn’t, I would probably have been stomped into paste and been lizard food long ago. Or worse, some other bigger stronger lizard might have mated with me out of season and lord knows I wouldn’t want that to happen.

  But somehow, I think my good morning lizard does have more thoughts running through its tiny brain than just those few things. I tend to think he’s smarter than your average lizard. I mean after all, he’s the only one that thought about climbing up there on our window and eating all those juicy bugs. And he seems to hang around just long enough each day to hear me say good morning, and then he’s off doing whatever lizards do during the day. Since he seems to be working the night shift, I assume he’s got a nice comfy bed somewhere and a sweet lizard wife to tuck him in each morning. When you think about it, it’s not such a bad life being a lizard. Eat bugs all night, say good morning to the strange human thing in the window then go home for a little mating and get tucked into bed all cozy to drift off and perhaps dream about big fat juicy good morning bugs. You could make a strong case for the human race being a lot better off if we had just stuck with our lizard brains. Developing the other parts of our brains may just have made us too smart for our own good. After all, I doubt my good morning lizard worries much about death and taxes, God or no God, or does Ms. Lizard really love him, or is she just faking it to put a roof over her head? I wonder what would happen if I turned the light off in the kitchen and left it off all night. Would he be mad at me? Would he go hungry? Would he finally build up enough courage to find a way in and attack me? Well, I guess we will never know for sure. Because I kind of like seeing him there every morning. It’s one of the few relationships I have that I truly seem to be able to count on. Purposely messing that up would no doubt prove once and for all who the superior creature is in this particular situation. So I highly recommend that if you have a relationship that you can truly count on in your life, don’t mess with it. Nurture it and appreciate it for what it is and be satisfied that you are blessed enough to have such a relationship at all. And always say good morning, whether you think it’s going to turn out that way or not.