If you follow me on Twitter at all, you know that I tend to Tweet exponentially more when I can’t sleep, which unfortunately for me but fortunately for y’all has been happening a lot more often lately. Part of it’s some changes in my balance of chemicals but for a while, it was attributed to The Ghost Lizard.
Now. Many of you don’t know the origin of GL. But I’m 90 percent sure he found me in Jamaica and stowed away in my bags and came home with me.
You see, one night while we were there this past summer, we had a lock-in at the church with our friends in Jamaica. And for some strange reason and because Jason wanted sleep, TJ and I were left somewhat in charge for the night, meaning we sat in the room out by the sanctuary and watched a movie on his laptop while taking turns going back and telling the youth to be quiet and go to sleep because we had a bus ride to the beach leaving at 4:30 a.m.
Well. Maybe it’s because the movie was The Woman In Black and therefore made us more aware of ghosts, but we heard a noise at some point we were pretty sure was not a kid, because they’d finally quieted down and (hopefully) gone to sleep. We heard it a couple of times and TJ said it was a lizard, while I said it was a ghost. Ta-da! Ghost Lizard was born – or discovered or whatever.
I thought nothing of it for a few weeks after I came home, but then one night I couldn’t sleep and it sounded like, I kid you not, a small animal was moving through the boxes around my makeshift bedroom in my parents’ basement.
Now, maybe I was just super sleep deprived or crazy, but you all, I was standing on my bed at 3:15 a.m. that first night holding a book in one hand and a pen in the other hand (sufficient weapons, I think) ready to attack if needed. Or to push the boxes and see if the thing made any more noise.
I can’t handle rodents. I really can’t. There was a mouse in the garage once (actually probably several) and I have never gotten in to my car faster than I did that week. I also once screamed at it as I ran “You don’t own me, mouse!”
So that was my first thought as to what might have been crawling around in my room making noise. Ew.
But the next day I looked around and moved some boxes and dug through some stuff and there was no sign of a mouse or anything like it at all – no holes in boxes, no rodent poop, nothing dead.
Next night? Something started moving in the walls.
Few things are as unsettling as being woken up by something skittering within the walls along the pipes and I’m just laying there staring at the ceiling hoping it A.) Shuts up and B.) Doesn’t find it’s way out and attack/eat me.
I hoped it was just there for the night and would find it’s way back outside and I wouldn’t have to worry about it anymore.
But then it came back, and all of the sudden I’m googling shit like, “Do squirrels sleep?” and imagining this Ghost Lizard asshole just moving around in there to mess with me. Because it was seriously right behind my head in the wall.
I didn’t even care that the thing was in the wall – I would have supported him moving to another room, where he wasn’t DIRECTLY BY MY FACE when I needed at least 3 hours of consecutive sleep. But nooooooooo, that would be silly.
All of this time, also, I’ll have you know, I’m picturing the damn thing looking like the cockamouse from How I Met Your Mother and OMG I wish I could find a clip from that episode because its one of my favorites and solidified my love for Jason Segel.
So after a few sleepless nights and when attempts to scare the thing to death or at least back out of the house didn’t work (I hit the wall a lot and bruised a couple knuckles. It was like a bar fight only lamer) – I told the Killer of all the Gross Stuff, Dad, to take care of it. So he threw poison in the wall that would make the thing get thirsty and go outside and die, he said.
Fine by me.
Except the POISON DIDN’T WORK. The Ghost Lizard was immune to poison, because, he was already dead. Ghosts can’t be killed. They can only “move on,” which I learned from Casper.
(Speaking of – Devon Sawa is one of my favorite people to follow on Twitter. And he’s still real hot.)
I think it took about a month on and off for whatever it was to finally go away. I don’t know what worked or how, but I like to think that really threatening last punch to the wall I gave (when Dad said, “Stop hitting the wall before you put a hole through it and whatever it is comes out and gets you”) that sealed the deal.
The Ghost Lizard was vanquished (I think) and all is right with the world.
On account of... 