Excuse the preamble, but context is everything.

I live in rural Jamaica, where the air is alive, the soil is generous, and the house, my home, is apparently open to free accommodations by all manner of creatures. I love plants, and because I love plants, I have plants in every room,  including the bathroom. Admittedly, my home is a lush and welcoming environment, a sanctuary, a botanical embrace especially for the myriad species in the environment.

It is also, I have come to understand, a lizard/Anole resort. No negotiating.  No advance schedule notice or invitation.

There are many lizards. Anoles, mostly, quiet, watchful, generally well-behaved tenants, if one ignores their calling cards, those tiny black droppings that appear as if signed, sealed, and deliberately placed to test my patience. They live behind my art work on the walls, and I have many pictures, so naturally, they have many apartments.

We coexist.  But coexistence requires boundaries. And I have made my boundaries clear. Repeatedly.

I speak to them. Yes, I do. I am in constant conversation with all living things. I have told the lizards, calmly and with authority: Stay out of my bedroom. Especially the croaking ones; I cannot abide that incessant, rubbery sound at night. And stay out of my kitchen. ost importantly: Stay off my table.

This is not unreasonable.

So imagine! Really, truly, truly imagine my consternation when I entered my kitchen and found not one, but two lizards engaged in full, unapologetic, midday fornication on my table.

On. My. Table.

At first, I saw only the male. A big brown fellow, rather bold, with little dots on his head, as if he had dressed up for the occasion. He was animated. Committed. I moved to shoo him away, already offended by his presence, when I realized… Oh no. This was not loitering. This was an event.

Beneath him, the female, small, half his size, likely minding her own business until he decided that my table was the appropriate venue for romance or a quickie!

Now, let me be clear: I do not object to their frolicking. Nature must and do propagate. The dogs do it in the yard, in the road, with an enthusiasm that borders on civic performance. Privacy is not a universal value.

But my table is not a public square.  My table is not a nightclub.  My table is not a lizard love motel.

I had to act.

I raised my voice, invoking my authority. I brought my full ancestral displeasure into the room. I told them firmly that this was unacceptable behavior. That they had violated sacred space. That they were out of line. Grossly. Spectacularly out of line.

Then I intervened physically.  I brushed them apart. They scattered, skittered, scrambled up the wall in what I can only describe as a very undignified retreat, and escaped outside.

But I was not finished.  I addressed them as they fled,  issued a warning, a final notice.

I informed them that while I had shown mercy this time, I would not be so kind again. That I possessed a bottle with a formidable concoction of lavender and vinegar, originally designed to deal with flies (and let me tell you, with seven chicken farms in the vicinity, the flies are legion), but one that could very easily be repurposed.

I made it plain: Do not test me.

Now, I do not know if it was the male who instigated the situation, but I have my suspicions. There was a certain audacity about him. A brazenness. A disregard for protocol.

So I find myself still asking: what kind of creature enters someone else’s home, surveys the environment, and decides, “Yes. Here. On this table. This is where I will express my desires/lust/urges”?

The answer is: a lizard.

So we continue, the lizards and I, in this uneasy coexistence. They behind the pictures. I at my table. Boundaries drawn. Terms stated.

But should they forget themselves again, should passion overtake judgment and lead them once more onto my table…Well!!!

The lavender and vinegar will be waiting.