It came from beneath the grass straw!!

Today brings in the 1% part of my blog.  Here's what happened:


I was sitting around playing world of warcraft as usual at the end of the night.  I'm a night shift worker, so when I say end of the night, I don't mean "before I went to bed."  I actually mean the very end of the night.  The sun had just barely started to come up.  You can always tell because the sky is still dark but it's different.  It's the difference between navy blue pants and black pants in a dark room.  You can tell one is different but it's subtle.  Anyhow, this isn't about the sky at sunup.  It's about the beast on my back porch.

So there I was watching "Defying Gravity" on dvd so that I could talk about it with a coworker when I got to work tonight when the dog burst in the room to let me know that the wife was up.  She always lets him out of the bedroom and he always comes up to my computer room immediately so that I'll take him outside.  Outside is where I found it, of course.

I grabbed the dog and the trash can figuring it's trash day so a good time to clean off the back patio of all the old crap back there.  I'd simply toss it in the trash and then take the trash out for pickup.  Viola!  No more trash and I don't have to worry about trash buildup in the can.  Perfection!

So there I was picking up trash and empty potting containers and such when it burst out of some grass beside the patio.  I'm telling you that lizard had to be at least 30 feet long and stood about 10 feet high.  It looked like something from out of the old B movies.  Maybe it was leftover from Captain Nemo's "Mysterious Island."  My dog, Popcorn, was no help.  No barking or anything like that.  He just sat at the back of the yard happily sniffing my compost pile hoping there was something edible in it.  I don't think he even saw me nearly get eaten!  If he did, he definitely wasn't going to take the chance there was a not-quite-rotten tomato on the pile that he missed.  That little dog is nothing if not thorough! 

So I squealed like a little girl when the dirt and debris burst up around me and the beast appeared.  The dog just sat sniffing happily at the compost pile for edible trash.  The wife was in the shower and honestly, she was cranky this morning so I wouldn't have bothered her anyhow.  The last thing a guy being attacked by a 30 ft lizard needs is his wife attacking him from the other side.  So I ran!  I ran to the corner of the house, dragging the trash like a dutiful husband, but I could still hear the monster approaching.  Luckily, some of the trash I threw out was an old fireplace set we were using on our fire bowl.  When the lizard poked his head around the corner I jabbed it's throat and ran off.  No, I'm sure I didn't kill it.  Watch out!  It just wandered off so there's not telling who's yard it went to next.  I explored it's lair later on with some hair spray and a lighter made into a torch and my scimitar, but it was gone.  I was already pretty sure it was gone having seen it's tracks lead out of the yard.  That's the only reason I explored.  Sadly there were no piles of gold around either.  Oh well.  It never looked like a dragon, anyhow.

Fifteen minutes later the dog came around to the garage all happy and wanting fed.  Then the wife informed me that it was time to go and she didn't see the lunch I was supposed to have packed.  Nobody cared about the lizard or the giant lizard hole I'd filled in.  Oh well! Such is the life of the adventurer!!