Herpetology Anonymous

My mom stood in front of the cash register, waiting for the cashier to scan her credit card. Employees walked back and forth, shouting requests for price-checks or scanning items at lightning speed. But today, I didn’t notice these things. I didn’t even check to see the name of the cashier on their name tag. Instead, I had my head bent over my Audubon Field Guide of Reptiles and Amphibians, my eyes glued to the photograph of the whiptail lizard. I tried to absorb the pattern of dark stripes on its back and the tiny specks of white. The miniscule details such as the shape of its mouth, the muscularity of its hind legs, the texture of the tail, the length of its fourth toe did not pass my eyes without inspection.

As I furrowed my eyebrows, concentrating, a voice brought me back to reality.

"Hey!” said an employee, smiling broadly, “I used to have the same book.” It took me a few seconds to process that he meant the field guide I was holding in my hand.

“Oh, really?” I asked.

“Yeah, I used to hunt down lizards all the time in my backyard.”

“Wow. I didn’t know that there were lizards around here?”

“Yeah, there are lizards everywhere. You just have to be fast enough to catch them.”

As the employee finished bagging the groceries, we...