There’s a skink in my car.
I was on U.S. 1 coming back from a trip to Jacksonville when I first noticed it.
It was like a flash, a flutter, a streak in the floorboard.
The streak was a skink.
That’s what my Grandma always called them. And, according to various scientific sources, she is correct. Not sure what makes the difference between them and a lizard, but Grandma called them skinks and I believed everything she told me.
Truth be told, though, it looked like a lizard to me.
At least it is a skink and not a skunk. Skinks don’t stink, I don’t think.
She was constantly harassed by those who snuck on to the back porch or who hid out in her ferns and aloe plant on the wide front porch.
She seemingly always had a broom or a fly swatter to shoo them away or to hasten them on to skink or lizard heaven — whichever designation it might be.
Not sure why she had such an aversion to them, especially since I read they eat household pests like flies and mosquitoes.
But, like I said, Grandma said it and it was so.
And now, I had one of those pesky varmints on the loose in my car no less.
It had stormed that day and I used my umbrella when I got out briefly to run an errand. I think he was hunting water. Maybe he was parched or famished or both.
Never-the-less, he was a stowaway in my car.
He was banded, dark to blend in with the interior of my car. Maybe he was a chameleon. He was about four or five inches long.
I didn’t like the thought of my passenger not being in safety restraints.
I could conjure up in my mind that all of a sudden my skink visitor jumping on to my head while I was riding down the road. That would not end well. It might be something akin to Ray Stevens’ “Mississippi Squirrel Revival.”
What to do?
I waited until I came to a rest stop on the highway and after the rain had stopped. I was determined to eject my visitor and let him hitchhike the rest of the way home.
I am pretty certain he came aboard when I put some signs from the church in the back of my SUV. The signs were stacked up next to the building by the eaves, where it would be damp and inviting for skinks.
Alas, I could not find him. And, I did not have a fly-swatter or a broom handy with me.
Armed with both and a flashlight later that night, I returned to the task of evicting my lizard friend.
I found him.
I could not catch him. He was a speedy and slick little fellow.
And, I remembered from Grandma’s constant battles with them, that the worst thing to do is grab them by the tail. They can allow their tails to be broken off and they can grow a new one.
So, Mr. Skink slinked off to hide out in my car another day.
That “another day” has turned in to a full week now.
I have not caught a glimpse of him since then. It’s been a whole 10 days. I am hoping my skink skipped out of my car and found a new place to hang out.
I hoped the skink skedaddled, but he hasn’t.
I saw him sunning in the window of the rear passenger door Sunday after church. He then promptly disappeared.
He looked healthy then, but I sure hope my skink isn’t trapped in my car and about to give up the ghost. I sure don’t want the skink to stink.
I’ve got my eyes wide open looking for him.
If you see me on the road brandishing a fly swat and a broom, you’ll know what’s going on.
• Jason Deal is a staff writer for The Blackshear Times. Reach him at [email protected].
