The lizard

My senior year of college was one of many blurs. I probably couldn't tell you what my schedule was and I 'm actualy kind of glad that I don't remember it. There was one thing that I vividly do remember though that took place during the fall semester. I can remember that it was just starting to get a tad cool in Florida and it was a favorite pastime of mine to eat a hot cup of roast chicken ramen soup in the chilly evenings while I played video... I mean... "studied". On this particular night my good friend Tsung-yen Haung (affectionally known as Thomas) was sitting in my room "studying" with me. I decided to get my usual cup of soup and of course gave him one. We walked down stairs to the dorm kitchen, to cook our little treasures in a cup. Seriously, the person who decided to combine oriental noodle soup with styrofam was a genious. While I was filling my cup exactly to the little line with water, I noticed a lizard stuck in the kitchen sink. Now here I am going to explain that unbeknownst to me the faucet was somewhat broken and would only spew out flesh poaching water. So as you can imagine, I decided to fill the sink with water to see if the lizzard would swim. This little plan went terribly wrong though because the moment that hot water touched the little reptile he siezed up as stiff as a board. I could pick him up and his tail was like a little toothpick. Of course I felt horrible. I couldn't believe that these little lizards that sit on the scalding hot sidewalk and eat ants couldn't even stand a little hot water. And as you could probably guess, Thomas continued to bombard me with guilt as he talked about me not having respect for God's creatures, and how could I not know that a tiny animal wouldn't be hurt by scalding hot water. The little guy was tough though and I could tell that he was still barely breathing. So I took him up to my room after cooking my soup and massaged his little stiff body. He continued to be stiff but the more I rubbed him and worked his little muscles, the more he seemed to breath and blink his little eyes. All of my friends scoffed and told me to give up but I kept it up. Now you must understand that I like to let my soup set for a good five to ten minutes before I consume it. It just tastes better to me like that. Well, I kind of forgot about my soup with all of the excitement and it sat there on my desk as I worked with the lizard. It was about the time that the lizard started moving his head from side to side and wiggle his little feet that it happened. I was poking him to get him to move and right as I was just about to poke his nose he regained control of his mouth and bit the tip of my finger. Now lizard bites don't hurt, but when you're not expecting it they can startle the heck out of you. I flailed my hand back and sent my cup of soup flying across my room where it hit the opposite wall and landed on my bed emptying the remaining contents. I was so angry about losing my precious cup of soup and having such a beast of a mess to clean up that I took the stiff little lizard and chucked him out the window. The moral to this story? Never massage a lizard. Or was it don't torment little creatures? Eh, either way, lesson learned.