embarrassing

This afternoon we had some repair men out to start work on the inspection list. Really nice guys. The one gentleman is older, maybe 60 or so, with that kind of reddish pickley nose and absurdly tan arms. He tells it like it is and believes that "what goes around comes around"... a kind of southern karma, I guess.

I took him out back to look at the shed door that sticks and needs to be repaired. (Needs a new threshold and a tightened door frame.) And as he was inspecting it with his back turned to me, I felt something wiggly on my foot...

I looked down and saw a medium-sized green lizard perched there ON MY FOOT, WAGGING HIS TAIL and STARING UP AT ME as if warning me of his impending assault! (I swear he gave me the stink eye!) (And he had teeth. Many many teeth.) (Ok, I may have imagined the teeth part.)

Immediately without thinking I screamed bloody murder -- EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! -- right into Nice Mister Repairman's left ear. And then proceeded to jump around and flail like a 6 foot banshee.

Well, I managed to scare the living daylights out of all three of us -- myself, the repairman and the lizard who ran for his life to the nearest fence post.

For a minute I thought I'd killed Mister Repairman. Heart attack most likely. Because he didn't move for a minute. Then finally he said: what is going on?! and I told him about the lizard and how he was trying to kill me and ew, those things creep me out, and I'm sorry you're now deaf, and can we move on with our lives now?

Luckily, he laughed. (That meant he could hear what I was saying and was not, in fact, deafened by my antics.)

But I was mortified. Good god. I am a grown woman. But still. Lizards. ew.