Then this face pops up over the steering wheel. I nearly forgot I was driving! How in the world did he get there?! How is he staying there?!! Toni, pull over!!!
Thankfully I was on the highway with a wide shoulder, because I pulled off the road before slowing down, in case he fell off. I didn’t want the car behind me to run him over. After surviving nearly a mile of 55 mph, hanging on for dear life, and somehow climbing up high enough for me to see him, it would be a shame for him to get run over!
I think only one long toe was still clinging to the windshield wiper as I screeched to a stop. The bright green skin on his neck quit flapping in the wind. And he slipped down and grabbed the windshield wiper with all four feet in a death grip.
His smile stayed frozen on his face, but if a lizard can look traumatized he certainly did! He didn’t even move until I tried to pet him. Then he ran across the windshield and clung to the side mirror. I pulled his tail and tried to get him to jump off the car, but probably his legs were too shaky to jump. : )
He was the biggest anole I’ve ever seen, so I didn’t try to pick him up. (I remember the lady at the pet store in Iowa wearing the anoles on her ears like earrings - once they bite onto something they don’t like to let go.) So I found a stick and tried to push him off into the grass. He ran down the length of the car, and I finally got him flicked off onto the ground. But he was eyeing the underside of the car as if he was going to jump on board again! So I ran around and jumped in the car and peeled out, hoping that he stayed on the roadside.
Laughter couldn’t be pushed aside any longer. And just thinking of his face looking in the windshield right at me with skin flapping like a skydiver’s makes me hysterical still! I’ve had the same experience with grasshoppers in Iowa and a spider in Michigan, but never with a seven inch lizard. Only in Texas!
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