I have an iguana named Stew. Rob is not as fond of Stew as he is Isis. No kisses, no rubs to the belly. He insists Stew is a boy, but I’ve decided she’s definitely a girl.
Rob doesn’t even like to touch Stew, who lives in his computer room because it was the best place to give her some southern exposure.
Last night, Rob was at his desk, on the phone with his sister, who’s going to feed Stew while we are out of town this weekend. I walked in and noticed that Stew’s habitat door was open. Apparently I didn’t close it after cleaning the poopy paper three hours or so earlier. I’ve done that before, but usually find that Stew has not left her post by the window.
Not this time.
“Where is he?” Rob asked in a panic. But before he got to the question mark, I spotted little Stew perched on a shelf next to the habitat.
“She’s right here, she’s fine,” I said, picking her up.
“So that’s how all my stuff got messed up,” he said. Not like the room was spotless to begin with, but yeah, I could tell at that point that Stew had not taken a direct route to the shelf, but had knocked over stacks of papers and climbed across the printer and Rob’s video camera.
“Oops,” I said.
“I feel so violated,” he said.
I mean, I can see how it’s pretty distressing to think of a four-foot iguana crawling all over your stuff. But sheesh, we’ve had the iguana more than a year and this is the first time she’s gotten out. That’s pretty good! And we found her within a second of realizing she was out. Imagine if I hadn’t found her…she could have been anywhere in the entire house. She could have crawled over Rob’s stuff for several more hours. She could have crawled across his face while he slept…
Kari Neumeyer 