I wake up in my dorm—with warm feet I should add—to my roommate talking (correction: squawking). This is my life. My college roommate? Beaty Towers’ very own crazy reptile lady. The squawking? She’s talking to her beloved bearded dragon, George. The warm feet? That’s caused by the heat radiating off George’s terrarium heat lamp.
This is my life now and I was nowhere near expecting a college experience like it.
Yes, I live in a tiny little dorm (erm, jail cell) with a bearded dragon staring at me almost all day. I didn’t even expect to live with this small dinosaur. After getting ghosted by my randomly assigned college roommate for months after I initially tried to contact her, she let me know she’s bringing her beloved pet with her.
She claims George is the love of her life, which I don’t doubt given they both are inseparable. She even bought George a hand-knit sweater because “he deserves the world.” Her love for that lizard appears stronger than Gorilla Glue.
Cool, I love pets.
One thing though: this pet sheds its entire outer layer once a year and carries insanely dangerous diseases that you must immediately wash off following tactile contact. Yay me. I had no choice but to seem optimistic to her. Seriously, who am I to tell my stranger of a roommate (who only texts me back when she needs something) that she can’t bring her pet to school with her? That’s how I ended up living with Mr. George.
That’s right: I have a two-foot tiny dragon crawling around my kitchen and desk. Fortunately, I discovered that George is very low maintenance and doesn’t really require a lot of attention. I only really freak out when I unexpectedly see him staring at me from his perch on my roommate’s shoulder. Although I’m okay with the fourth reptile roommate, my third college roommate doesn’t find him quite as endearing. She, like I, didn’t expect to share our space with a lizard. The only difference is that she’s actually terrified of reptiles.
As one can imagine, this little menace became quite a point of contention with my roommates.
My lizard-loving roommate regularly talks to George in a baby voice and my other roommate almost constantly rolls her eyes at these antics.
Although George is one of the only sources of conflict among us human cohabitants, he remains blissfully unfazed from our tension. Even when we yelp, startled, seeing him on his mom’s desk, he continues his daily lounging session, as my roommate puts on his favorite show.
Hopefully this is not the last time you hear of George… because there definitely were some slight threats to his precious life.
My non-lizard-loving roommate seems to constantly plot how she’s going to frame his “escape.” Ultimately, I think she really enjoys the banter George produces because he brings my other roommate so much joy.
Can George be a nuisance sometimes? Yes, especially when he crawls over to my side of the bed and claws on my arm. Is this some philosophical lesson I’m teaching myself? Also yes… mainly because I need a bright side to this story. I realize that sometimes I’m going to need to deal with situations that aren’t ideal or in my plan.
George definitely wasn’t in my plan, but it gave my roommates and me an immediate inside joke and brought us closer together than we may have otherwise. For that? Thank you, Mr. George.
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