Lizard Steaks
Didn’t I just write about parrots in my produce section? I thought I’d pretty much seen it all. Course, you think that, you’re either in hospice or you haven’t watched reality TV lately. Down here on the South End, if we know one thing, it’s this: something weirder is coming down the blacktop, probably sooner than later.
This weekend I was loitering by the dairy case looking for some growth-hormoned-up milk products when a guy passes by me and on his back, plastered down like a silk-screened tattoo was this scaly lizard , claws hanging on to his t-shirt at the neck. At first I thought it was a rubber toy. You know, give grandma a good laugh when she recovers from her heart attack. But it was real. Some gila monster or maybe a small komodo dragon, hard for me to say not being a herpetologist.
I don’t know — maybe you got a python you like to go to the mall with. Or a crocodile tame enough to bring to the daycare when you pick up your kid. Maybe I’m just an old fogey out of touch with current trends in animal husbandry, a curmudgeon who thinks a vicious pitbull should suffice for those looking for attention-getting pets.
It’s a free country I’m told, especially on the live and let live South End. In fact, Jungle Jim informed me of that when I asked him why he needed a lizard to go shopping with. At the checkout line I paid my bill and said to Jenny as she handed me change, “There’s a guy coming through with a gila monster on his back pretty soon.” She laughed. I said, “No, seriously, he’s got a two foot lizard on his back.” From her reaction, I’d guess they don’t see a whole lot of reptiles in the store. Jenny asked what did I think.
“Tell him you’ve got to weigh it.”
“Weigh it?” Jenny asked.
“Sure, tell him you charge $14.99 a pound for whole lizard. More if he wants it cleaned and deboned.”
Somehow I don’t think Jenny was going to. The customer, I guess, is always right.
Gouverneur Morris, one of the primary authors of the Constitution would no doubt agree we Americans have a right to Freedom! and Lizards! He was after all the funny one at the Constitutional Convention, although the bar for that distinction was set quite low by the other Founding Fathers.
Here’s a quote from young Morris observing a meeting in 1774:
“The mob being to think and reason. Poor reptiles! It is with them a vernal morning, they are struggling to cast off their winter’s slough, they bask in the sunshine, and ere noon they will bite.”
When a man with a lizard on his back gives you the cold shoulder it’s a good thing. You don’t want to be around when the reptiles warm up.
Point taken and I assure you, no more shopping in the afternoon or on warm mornings.