Who Let The Lizards Out?
My first year in high school was marked by my diagnosis of Crohn’s disease. This chronic illness took a significant toll on my physical growth. Weighing a mere 70 pounds at 14, my appearance was gaunt and frail.
As expected, people often remarked on my thinness and rumors circulated that I might be anorexic.
As part of my curriculum, I had to take a Health and PE course. There was this one classmate, a real numbskull, who never missed a chance to make a snide comment. Seated diagonally ahead of me in class, he seldom held back. But I was soon going to teach him a lesson.
One day, while we were at the track, I noticed him being especially jumpy around a lizard that another classmate had found on a fence. Seeing his reaction, the classmate couldn’t resist chasing him around with it—and his faced turned white with panic.
The following day, I decided to play a prank on him. I caught a few lizards, put them in a portable carrier, and sneakily unleashed them on him during class. While nobody knew who was behind it, everyone had a good laugh while watching him jump out of his seat, shrieking in fear and struggling to shake off the lizards. His squealing became a running joke for the rest of the year among our classmates.
It wasn’t exactly the most mature reaction, and I harbor a bit of remorse for it. But I must admit, it was utterly funny and, at the time, satisfying to get my little revenge.