ranton

Many of us have have been blessed with pets in our lives has a gift, a stray or a neighbor's. These are two pets I did not own, have any idea where they came from or what happened to them.

The first was a cat I called Shadow, I met the feline (sex unknown) in the parking lot of an apartment complex. After several meetings in passing, I set a food dish outside in the parking lot. This led to Shadow following me to my apartment, I left the door open and after several days Shadow came inside. The door was never closed but Shadow got to the point of sitting on the couch next to me allowing me brushing and petting privileges. This relationship lasted 3 or 4 months and ended when Shadow no longer came around.

The second was a lizard that lived off the back balcony of the Bellman's Quarters at a resort. Two skills where required to become friendly with this lizard, you had to swat flies without killing them and you had to be able to hold them in your finger tips for the lizard. There where eleven Bellman and only four of us had the dexterity to be able to accomplish these skills.

Since the resort had plenty of swamp the flies where no problem to find. Once one was captured and ready to be fed to the Lizard (we never named him) all it took was a few knocks on the handrail and the Lizard can scurrying for his free meal. If the fly was not moving, the meal was rejected, otherwise it would be taken right out of our finger tips.

We had contest to see who could feed the Lizard the most flies in a shift, the little thing fattened up quite nicely. After two seasons, he was gone.