Psychological Warfare
Today’s tale revolves around one of the most mundane activities of our lives. Today I made the mistake of going to check the mail. It started out like any other day. I walked to my front door, unlocked the door, and turned the handle. As I was rotating the handle I thankfully looked up through the glass pane and saw a lizard on the inside of the weather door. The only thing protecting me from the disgusting, repulsive green death was the door. I mentally said “Nope, not today, Satan,” and immediately let go of the handle, locked it right back up, and decided to take the long way and get the mail from my carport since I was about to leave anyway.
As a final act of preparation to leave, I went to my room to grab my Apple Watch. I knew I was lying to myself when I said I was going to go for a jog and wanted to track my run, but I grabbed it anyway. What I didn’t know was that in mere seconds from now I was about to do some cardio. I was just wrong about what kind of cardio I was going to do. Because when I was putting my overpriced fitness band on is when I saw it. I saw a second lizard is just chilling on the inside of my window curtains. To be clear, this spawn of evil is inside my house. Not waiting to ambush me while I was trying to get the mail, but actually inside the sanctity of my own home.
His silhouette was as bright as a solar eclipse. It was ominous. It was real. It was there. I was paralyzed in fear. I didn’t know what to do. What can you do? How do you kill a lizard on a soft, easily movable object? It’s not like I can just hit the curtain with a brick or something and kill the lizard while breaking the window at the same time. This fiend chose the one place where he had a tactical advantage and there was nothing I could do about it. Who knew that they study the Art of War in the depths of Hell before coming to terrorize innocent people. What did I do to deserve this?
After pacing back and forth in anguish for what seemed like an eternity, I came to the conclusion that there was only one way to take this bastard out. I figured if I thumped him as hard as humanly possible I would be able to crush his tiny ribs into a thousand pieces and send him into the next life. I started to hype myself up. I’m a man for God’s sake! How DARE you violate me in my own safe space! So with all my might, I screamed “RETURN FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, HEATHEN!” and thumped him with the force of a thousand suns (through the curtain, of course. I am not touching a lizard).
My plan failed. He fell to the floor and we spent the next 15 minutes in a state of total war. My bedroom looks like a World War 1 battlefield. I grabbed the can of Raid, I grabbed the broom, I overturned clothing hampers and tossed shoes like grenades. I looked like I was storming the beaches of Normandy with Tom Hanks. He proved to be a worthy adversary. He would bend, but not break, and would launch a counterattack and I’d run away screaming like a little girl (in the interest of full disclosure I’m a 6'5", 210-pound man that’s scared of lizards — holla at me, single ladies). However, and most importantly, I never lost eye contact. That was key. If I lost visual contact with this lizard I would have to burn the house down. There simply was no other option. He had to die.
We reached a point where neither one of us had the upper hand. It was two adversaries in the trenches unable to make any meaningful progress. We were at a stalemate that looked to be a war of attrition that would only end in death. Victory at all costs. No surrender.
We were reviewing our battle plans when I saw it. My trusty police flashlight from back in my part-time deputy days. I slowly maneuvered around the right flank toward my bed that is now in complete disarray, grabbed the flashlight from the nightstand, and unleashed the lizard equivalent of mustard gas. I hit him with the strobe effect — typically used to REALLY get a motorist's attention. To those not familiar, this flashlight has the brightness of a lighthouse. I could bring down an airplane with this thing. And the strobe effect, as you can surmise, flashed the light on and off so fast it could give a perfectly healthy person an epileptic seizure.
To my surprise… after everything else failed, it worked! The strobe effect disoriented him long enough for me to move in bring down the broom handle with the weight of Thor’s hammer into his side. I watched the light slowly fade from his filthy eyes. Not even Lucifer could save him now. He was dead and was swept into the dustpan of history. Nobody will remember him or miss him. Filthy animal.
I was shaking and my hands were trembling. It was finally over. Something as innocent as checking the mail turned into all hell breaking loose for 15 minutes. I don’t smoke, but I felt like I needed to rip a cig after that. My bedroom was a complete disaster. I was sweating. I was exhausted. I was tired. Finally, and most importantly, I almost met my workout goal for the day.
(Side note: if you can get the broom handle out of his side I’ll kneel down in front of you and call you king.)
