He Fell From the Sky

After a trip to the grocery store, I parked my car in the garage, loaded my arms up with grocery bags, and headed toward the house. Just as I reached the door leading from the garage into the kitchen, I happened to glance down...and found myself eye-to-eye WITH A LIZARD who had somehow dropped (from the sky? from garage door? from the ceiling of the garage?) onto my shoulder.

Shockingly, I didn't scream or drop the groceries. I did, however, panic: I stopped breathing (which I didn't realize until later), tightened my grip on the bags, and started spinning around in a circle while swiping at my shoulder with my full hands. On the third "circle and swipe" I managed to knock the lizard off my shoulder, but as often happens when lizards are traumatized, the tail of this lizard popped right off its body and started wiggling around on the garage floor. The body of this lizard didn't land on the garage floor though...it landed IN. MY. GROCERIES.

NO. Just no.

Yes, the he's kind of small. But he FELL FROM THE SKY
ONTO MY SHOULDER which made him seem much bigger.

I couldn't knowingly bring a lizard into my house, so I started unloading the bags - slowly, carefully, and one item at a time - onto the floor of the garage. After I isolated the lizard, I picked up his bag and tossed it out into the driveway. It was right then I realized I'd stopped breathing, so I took a couple of minutes to compose myself and allow the lizard time to vacate my bag.

Unloading my groceries onto the floor in order
to figure out into which bag the lizard dropped.

Waiting for the lizard to head on home.

After I could breathe again, I headed out to the driveway to retrieve my bag. When I discovered the lizard still inside, I picked the bag up at a corner using just two fingers and shook it aggressively, hoping to evict the lizard. When he didn't appear, I realized, as my eyes slowly shifted from the bag's opening to my two pinched fingers, the reason why.

I dropped the bag faster than a hot potato, and the lizard - who at this point had survived falling/jumping from the sky onto my shoulder, repeated swipings, tail amputation, falling from my shoulder into the groceries, flying through the air and landing in the driveway in a grocery bag, and a rough pinching - finally emerged, much worse the wear.

I gathered my bags and my groceries, stumbled inside the house, and collapsed onto a kitchen chair...definitely much worse the wear myself.