Lizards and Loos

The last thing I want to do is gross anybody out, but I have a bathroom story that I absolutely have to share. Don't worry, it's not about a squatter. In fact, it happened in my very own Western-style bathroom...

I had just gotten up on this lazy Saturday morning, and the first thing I had to do was use the toilet. So I did. And everything went absolutely fine until I stood up and flushed. As the water began to swirl around and go down, I noticed something trying desperately to come back up. "What could that be?" I thought, as I bent down to check it out.

You may not believe this, but I'm telling you it's true - the thing trying to come up out of my toilet was a little lizard. A LIZARD!!!

Now, these tiny lizards (perhaps they are salamandars) are all over the place in India. They crawl all over the walls and on the floors, and they're great because they eat mosquitoes and other pesky creatures. When I first arrived in India, these little things kind of freaked me out, but now I think they're cute and they don't bug me at all.

Well, that is until they start coming up out of my toilet. I have to say that I didn't freak out, but I was totally grossed out. I mean, I went to the bathroom on the lizard...and I don't even want to think about what would have happened had it started to come up out of the toilet before I was finished using it. Yikes! So, I'm not afraid of the lizards, but today, I'm afraid of my toilet. And I'm afraid to drink anything because I do not want to use that toilet again today.

For those of you wondering, the lizard, while a bit shocked, remained unharmed.