Last night I got distracted by this and that, as I sometimes do, and I didn’t eat supper until 9:30pm or so. I wanted something easy but also a “comfort food” so I made a toasted peanut butter sandwich. My method is usually to make the sandwich and then toast it, but last night I decided to toast the bread first and then put on the peanut butter and apple jelly– my favorite.

side note: We’ve got a relatively new toaster oven and I clean it about once a week by pulling out the crumb tray and washing it. Usually my trigger to do this is that I can smell crumbs burning.

As I was toasting my bread last night, I noticed what I assumed to be the smell of some crumbs burning down in the bottom of the tray, as I hadn’t cleaned the toaster oven yet for the week. The bread was already almost done and the little oven was very hot– too hot to touch by far– so I made a mental note to clean it first thing in the morning.

This morning I got up and prepared to eat my usual breakfast– a poached egg over a piece of toast (or some variation thereof, most days)– and remembered to clean out the tray.

And when I pulled out the toaster tray…

I found a dead lizard.

*shudders*

It was gray and shriveled and I freaked out and threw him away before examining him properly.

But then I started thinking…. Did I eat a Lizard Sandwich? Am I contaminated? Am I going to puke all day??

The answers are no, no, and no, or so it would seem.

Once I calmed down a little, I realized the lizard wasn’t black like he’d been burned; he was still gray like a lot of lizards are around here, and just looked, well, dry. I also heard from a couple of nurse friends (who received urgent messages in ALL CAPITALS LIKE THIS) who told me I was fine (and found me very funny).

So here’s what I think happened– Last night it got pretty cool in the house downstairs. I’ve always got lizards in the house, and mostly the cats either get them (which is sad) or I get them and relocate them to one of the porches (which is happy). So this lizard probably felt his little cold-blooded self getting too cool and climbed into the nice, slightly warm box on the counter… and then couldn’t get out and dehydrated. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway.

In related news, I now have what is possibly the cleanest toaster oven EVER.

Yeah.