As a kid, I had an irrational fear of the kind of small, scaly creatures you never saw packaged with Barbie or any of her Animal Lovin’ Friends. One night when I was young a gecko decided my bathwater looked like an inviting swimming hole. (Contrary to what Geico would have you believe, geckos are not annoying, insurance-hocking Australians.) What should have been a traumatic experience instead lead to my deciding lizards weren’t so scary after all.

My fascination with small animals had only increased in the dozen or so years, so by the time I had my first run-in with an anole, there were very few vertebrates (and a number of invertebrates) squirrel-size or smaller that I didn’t absolutely adore. I drew the line at any individual animal that was currently carrying bubonic plague, but I have been known to coo over the mangiest of squirrels, some of the less menacing grass snakes, and even a sewer rat I saw scamper across the road one night in Baltimore. I’m sure everyone expected my predilection for small animals to result in an unfortunate wildlife encounter sometime, but I personally had always anticipated losing a finger to a “precious little caiman.”

I was sitting at a picnic table in one of the wooded areas on campus generally minding my own business, during which the most offensive thing I did to Mother Nature was walk to the trashcan and throw away a tissue. An anole leapt from my backpack onto my hand. (Perhaps my hand somehow learned and began performing some arcane lizard mating call without my knowledge.) I jumped, and the anole responded by scurrying up my arm, climbing onto my shoulder, and launching itself at my cheek.

I don’t care how much you love animals, the natural reaction to having one take a flying leap at your face is GETITOFFGETITOFFOHMYGODGETITOFFRIGHTNOW!! I am not by nature a demonstrative person, but I treated passersby to quite the illustration of How Not To Keep Your Cool. After what seemed like a panicked eternity of thrashing about and whimpering slightly in the manner of someone who doesn’t have to bother with feeding or clothing herself, I came to my senses and realized that the offending reptile was no longer on my face.

A few minutes later, I got that creepy feeling that I was being watched. I turned to my right, and there on my shoulder was the anole glaring up at me, a slightly malevolent glint in its little reptilian eyes. I imagine this is what Voldemort looked like in his snakiest phase--the pure, unbridled hatred searing everything his gaze fell on (or at least, the anole looked more like Voldemort than Ralph Fiennes does [end Potter Geek moment]). My desire to prevent a recurrence of the previous attack somehow outweighing my desire to freak out, I matched the lizard’s glare and chased it back down my arm and onto the table. Instead of leaving, however, it stayed on the table and continued to glare at me. The air between us sizzled audibly until I left half an hour later to go to my next class, having been soundly defeated in a staring match with an animal that never blinks.

I have since been trying to figure out why exactly the lizard felt the urge to attack me. I hadn’t sat down on any of the anole’s little friends, and I certainly didn’t smell like lizard food. I know that money was what flying lizards in the early eighties wanted, but I somehow doubt this one could have dragged a dollar bill off if I had offered it one.