Springtime: Mating Season

It’s almost spring here in Houston. (Sorry about that, Bullet Hole.) I know this because as I sit down at my desk to figure out what I’m going to blog about, something scuttling across the French doors catches my eye. It catches my cat’s eye, too, who is sitting on my desk. It takes a minute for me to identify the object. It’s a lizard. One of those lime green lizards who, when horny, puff out their bright red throats to catch the attention of all the hot-looking female lizards. (Males of all sorts do resort to cheap tricks, don’t they?) Yep, it’s almost spring.

And thinking about spring, and about horny lizards, well, I . . . I think about . . . men (scaly creatures that they are) and about what happened a couple of years ago on one fine spring morning. I was working, writing a tender, sweet love scene. The kind I always write, one that is brilliant and would bring a tear to your eye, when my husband, who is in the backyard doing his annual spring backyard cleaning, yells out, “Come here! Right now! Hurry! Bring your camera!” (Yup, this is another blog about my husband. So put down any drinks and pizza you may have in your hands.)

Now, my hubby is all into nature. He’s one of those sweet men who notices beauty, who appreciates beauty. (Hey, he married me, didn’t he?) Why, it’s not uncommon at all for him to stop the car, just to get a look at some beautiful wild flowers blooming on the side of the highway. He’s constantly pointing out birds, or even the color in the spring leaves. (I do love this about that man.)

So, when he called to me on that beautiful spring morning to bring my camera, I imagined a beautiful Monarch fluttering its wings on a bright yellow flower in our backyard, or maybe a red-headed wood pecker clinging to the bark of one our pine trees.

Unfortunately, on this particular day, my husband wasn’t in his sweet all-about-nature-frame-of-mind. Oh, no. On this day he was thinking more like…well, more like most men think. His mind was in the gutter. (I like to call it, thinking below the belt.) Ah, but I was oblivious to this at that time.

Camera in hand, I rush outside. “Where is it?” I asked in a low voice, not wanting to send the butterfly, or bird into flight.

He points to the back of the house. “There.” And he brushes up close to me.

I look around, I don’t see a butterfly, a bird, I don’t even see any bright colored flowers. And at this point, I don’t read anything into the close brushing of his shoulder against mine. “Where?”

He points again. I move in, sure I’ll see the awe-inspiring photo op that I’m sure I can use in my gardening articles, and I’m totally appreciating that I have a husband who recognizes beauty when he sees it. Ah, jezz, I love this man!

Then I see it! Oh ,boy, do I see it.

He hadn’t called me out to capture some beautiful piece of nature. He’d called me out to photograph lizard porn!

I swing around and give him the LOOK. (You know the look, don’t you? The look we females give men when we wonder if perhaps men and women aren’t actually from two different species and shouldn’t belong on the same planet, much less be procreating.)

And that’s when I notice the all-telling twinkle in my husband’s eye. (You know the twinkle, don’t you? The twinkle that has gotten women in trouble since Adam winked at Eve when he wanted her to get the apple.)

But hey, women have come a long way since Eve. Especially when said woman is worried about her hubby being twinkled-induced by the sight of a couple of lizards doing the deed.

I roll my eyes. “Let me get this straight. You actually want me to take a picture of that?”

“Among other things,” he says and his twinkle increases. (I personally think spring does something to all the male species. Like encourages mating season.)

I shake my head. “Sweetheart, I hate to let you down, but unless you can puff out your neck and it be some gorgeous bright red color and totally change my mind, there’s no way I’m climbing up the side of the house and trying to one-up a couple of four-legged reptiles making whoopy.”

I’m not going to tell you how that day ended (I told you there were some things I wouldn’t share) but as you can see, I did take the picture. But on a final note, let me say we shouldn’t be too hard on Eve, those damn twinkles can be as convincing as. . . as a bright red puffed out neck.

While that should be the end of that story, there’s more. My hubby, being the man he is, came up with the bright idea. (You’ve heard about some of his bright ideas, right?) Well, this one was a doozy. He decided it would be funny to send a faux blackmail letter to the . . . the Geico lizard. He copied the picture and sent a note to our Geico representative that stated, “Hey, Bloke, do you know what your wife was doing last weekend?”

The next week our insurance got canceled. And that’s when it was confirmed. Men really are a different species, they shouldn’t be on the same planet, and twinkle or no twinkle, we shouldn’t be procreating.

So…any funny men stories you’d like to share? Come on, we might have to live with them, but we can still poke fun at ‘em. Oh, and my husband does occasionally read my blogs and I don’t want him to believe I’m the only one who has something to say about men. So, help a girl out, I need your support.