The one with the popsicle.

My parents always catered to my younger brother. I was the oldest, so I was the one that was deprived of all things wonderful. Oh whoa is me....When it came to pets, my brother was pretty much allowed any pet he could think of, that is how we ended up with several iguanas, several snakes, newts, fish, and even a taranchula...

The first iguana David got was a Christmas present. Since I stopped believing in Santa Clause at the tender age of FIVE I was allowed in on the secret that he was in fact getting this iguana from 'Santa'. At this point in my life I wasn't exactly aware of the fact that he was catered too... so, whatever, he was getting an iguana. He gets this iguana for christmas and couldn't have been more excited. Along with the iguana he received a special iguana walking harness (I think it was actually for a guinea pig)... A few days after Christmas, David and I decided to take Iggy for a walk outside. Well, the walk did not end well. In fact the walk didn't even end with Iggy. He ran away. For years David and I would talk about how Iggy was running around basking in the Florida sunlight.. oh, we were dreamers.

When I was about 16 a full 9 years or so after we had Iggy I was at my aunts house and we were talking about past pets. I am not sure if it was my aunt or a cousin that said how horrible it must have been when my neighbor found our iguana. WHAT? I had no idea what she was talking about. How could our neighbor have found Iggy, um, he had run away and was up in a sun shine filled tree eating hibiscus! No. Apparently that spring my neighbor made a startling discovery. Poor Iggy did not survive the winter and in his bushes he found an iguana popsicle. I could not believe my ears! Seriously? How could no one tell me? So, there I was 16 years old bawling like an idiot, because my poor iguana that I really wasn't even all that found of had died a wintery death and was not on an island somewhere making baby iguanas.

We had two more iguanas after that. Igor unfortunately also died a young death, of natural causes. Elvis stayed around for quite sometime and even lived in my room with me. One day my mom decided that we had had enough of him, so she gave him to her nail lady.

~smb