Pool - 2 / Lizard - 1 / Mice - 0 / Snake - 0

I arrived home with the goal of getting caught up on swimming pool maintenance. We were on vacation last week and the week before that I was out of town for work. So with almost 3 weeks of guilt and neglect, I set to work. I run my tests, add some chemicals, and then begin scrubbing the whole thing down with a long handled brush. Wearing my swim suit I head into the pool to work on the stairs and the tile lip. It was at this time that Deb arrives home.

I ask Deb if she could pull out the skimmer basket and dump out what ever junk is in there.

Deb says that she hates reaching down into the dark hole to find the basket handle because "You never know what might be in there." I, worn out by scrubbing am less than sympathetic to her fears, and I badger her into doing it anyway.

The lid comes off, her hand reaches slowly into the hole, and then the screaming begins.

"Lizard!" "There's a yellow lizard in there and it's big!"

I pull myself over the edge, look into the basket... and it is empty. I look into the skimmer... and it is empty. There is NO lizard.

Deb continues to tell the lizard story and I finally agree to go to the secondary basket filter back in the mechanical area and see if the mythical lizard is there. As I make the journey, I am sure there will be no lizard.

I was wrong.

So this poor thing sees Deb, flips out of the skimmer basket and is sucked into the filter system. It arrives in the secondary filter basket and is tumbled around for at least 2 minutes while I try to convince Deb she is crazy. Since this appears to be a Salamander, it breathes air, and I assure you there was no air until I shut down the system and pounded off the lid to the basket. Mr. Salamander spent quite a bit of time hanging out on my hand catching its' breath.

Spending some time thinking about how simple life seemed until Deb came along and messed everything up!