So, the day I was Googling “how do I get rid of skinks?” was also the day I was tapped to join a committee in my husband’s outdoor organization.  

Yes. They’ve met me. 

Just deepens that mystery, doesn’t it? 

It all started as I climbed the lone step to my front door. A tiny blue skink ran under the storm door. 

And disappeared. 

Did he skitter into my house? Dash beneath the siding? Dig into a crack in the concrete step? 

I don’t know.  

Which is exactly what made his mad dash so terrifying. 

You may recall I have three skinks freeloading at my house. 

One lives on my back deck. We call him Walter White because he’s been squatting in my yard since the family’s Breaking Bad binge. 

Walter White has gotten into my house twice, thanks to that tricky storm door no one can remember to close properly. 

My dog spotted him both times. Both times, he leapt over a table to get to Walter White. Both times, he abandoned the chase once he realized Walter White was nothing he wanted to pursue. 

Talk about freeloaders. 

Let me be clear. Walter White getting into my house is my version of hell. I was Jennifer Lopez in Anaconda. I was the police detective in Alligator. I was — am — Bridget Fonda in my oft-referenced Lake Placid. 

The day after Walter White’s excursions into my house, I woke up sore – because I clenched every muscle in fear, so tightly, for so long. What if we never found him? What if he got on me? What if? What if? WHAT IF?! 

The skink living in the cracked concrete on my front step is Mike Muncer. Mike Muncer is my favorite podcaster. I named Mike Muncer after Mike Muncer in an attempt to endear him to me. 

It hasn’t worked. 

Especially since Mike Muncer went and had a little skink baby, Mike Muncer Jr. It is Mike Muncer Jr. who ran under the front storm door and disappeared. 

I mean, really, Mike Muncer. You couldn’t have practiced a little skink birth control while living rent-free in the crack in my step? 

“Why don’t you just seal the crack?” the exterminator asked. 

Hmm. Well, I don’t know. Why don’t I just seal the crack? Maybe because the skinks will have no way to get out of the step except through the dining room floor, which sits just above and behind Mike Muncer’s condo under my step. 

Yeah. That’s what I want. To come downstairs one morning to find Mike Muncer and Mike Muncer Jr. hanging in my dining room like the twins from The Shining. 

No thanks. 

The crack stays. 

Then there’s the skink in my garage. I named him Kato because, well, I’m not terribly creative. 

Last summer, Kato ate the bug living in the garage keypad. We named that bug Bugbert. 

I wasn’t exactly thrilled to have Bugbert staring at me each time I flipped open the cover to the garage keypad. But he largely stayed off the keys, which I appreciated. 

He’s also not a skink. 

Something else I appreciate. 

I wasn’t sad when Bugbert disappeared. Maybe Bugbert had enough and moved on. The house around the corner just sold. Maybe Bugbert bought his own digs. 

Or maybe Kato ate him. 

For fortification. 

Because Kato clearly spent the winter in a family way. 

Kato and his baby, Kato Jr., often peer out at me from beneath the garage door.  

I don’t go in the garage when they look at me like that.  

I am not happy to be running a house for wayward skink mothers.  

A friend sent me a link from a gardening account on Facebook. “That skink sunbathing on your patio? He’s hunting mosquitoes, flies, and slugs — for free.”  

Well, if they could look a little less reptilian and procreate a smidge less, I’d be cool with that. 

As this was all going down, my husband took a call with his outdoor organization. He emerged from this call with the committee request on his tongue. 

I thought he was joking. 

What could I possibly contribute? 

Recently, we were at that organization’s annual meeting in Montana. I sat chatting with two other wives. They were ranking their order of circumstances for camping — from campers to truck beds to tents. 

I sat in mute horror. 

None of it is good. None of it. I’ve done two of those. One scarred me so badly, I’m pretty sure it’s where my aversion to the outdoors comes from. 

One confirmed my distaste for the outdoors. When a snake was spotted on a nature hike that weekend, the call went out to warn me. 

There were scores of people camping at that event.  

But the call went out to prevent me from encountering the snake. 

Yes. I am that high maintenance.  

On one trip with this organization of my husband’s, he arrived at the event venue a day before me. The hotel, he says, was fine. 

And in no way up to my standards. 

He walked out. He found me a pretty hotel with a glistening lobby and trendy boutique. 

So, yeah. 

Definitely the girl you want on an outdoor committee. 

Wish me luck. 

Well, no. As long as you’re wishing me things, wish for the skinks to leave. 

Thanks.