True story, bro

Once upon a time, there was a little girl.  She may have believed that she was a princess, because she had wrapped her daddy's heart around her little finger and made him love her so much that he desired to give her everything her heart desired, and only princesses received treatment like that from their fathers, who are kings.  Sometimes, this granting of desires came much to the chagrin of the mother in the story, who believed that she was a queen (and rightfully so).   One time, for instance, the little princess-girl asked her king-daddy for a pet lizard, and the king-daddy said yes, without ever discussing it with the queen-mommy, who also enjoyed giving the princess-girl the desires of her heart, but would have found the idea of a pet lizard, if it had been discussed with her, bothersome, as the queen-mommy is greatly creeped out by the living creatures on which the royal pet would feed.

Yet, as we all know, the King trumps the Queen, and the royal pet household then consisted of a well-loved dog, a well-loved but also well-hated cat, an interestingly furred guinea pig, and a lizard.

The princess-girl named her lizard Ossey, and though it is spelled with two S's, it is pronounced like Ozzy and he/she/it was so-named because of its bright green hue which reminded the princess-girl of the land of Oz.  Ossey the pet lizard came to live with the royal family free of charge, if one doesn't count the cost of his aquarium/terrarium/tank/receptacle, the dirt and décor of such living quarters, the lamps and specialty bulbs (3?) that had to be purchased to keep him warm enough to survive, and the cost of food.  But the lizard itself was free. 

Oh, I mentioned food.  Let me tell you what the princess-girl's royal pet lizard prefers to eat:  Crickets.  Live crickets.

Now the one creepy crawly thing on the planet the queen-mommy has a problem with is crickets.  Not snakes.  Not spiders, unlike some people we know.  Not beetles or bees or flies or worms.  Crickets.  And now this royal family must regularly purchase a container of living crickets and transport them across town to keep the pet lizard alive, all the while fretting that the crickets will get out of the box in the car (quite possibly causing an accident), or even get out of the box in the castle, or whatever.  Even when they are in the box, or the aquarium/terrarium/tank/receptacle, the crickets can be heard, singing their little tunes that sound like little cricket fingernails on a cricket-sized blackboard.

Thus the royal family lived in this way for a number of months.  The queen-mommy learned to tolerate the creepy beasts, the princess-girl was quite happy (even though you really can't do anything with such a lizard but look at it and watch it shed its skin), and the king-daddy was happy that the princess-girl was happy.  The seasons began to change, and guests came and went as they visited over the holidays, and a new regular routine of life began with the new year.

One day, the king-daddy called the queen-mommy at work to tell her some horrible news.  The top of Ossey's  aquarium/terrarium/tank/receptacle had been pried open by some clawed animal, and Ossey was nowhere to be found!  Surely the culprit was the royal well-loved but also well-hated cat named Velcro, and surely the fate of Ossey the royal pet lizard was Velcro's intestines.

It was terrible, breaking the news to the princess-girl, who cried and mourned the loss of her beloved reptile.   The king-daddy removed Ossey's  aquarium/terrarium/tank/receptacle from its place of prominence in the living room, cleaned it out, and stored it in the basement, until at some point, a new owner could be found to purchase all of these supplies from us for their own "free" lizard.

And then life went on.

For three blessed weeks.

And then one morning, on a cold winter day, as the princess-girl was getting ready for school, she walked to the window to check the weather outside.  As she approached, she could see something on the cold window sill.  Something dark and gray.  Something lifeless and bloated.  She screamed, horrified.  It was Ossey. 

The princess-girl was so emotional she was unable to go to school.  That evening, the princess-girl led the royal family in a memorial service for the poor pet.  She gave a eulogy.  Her older brother performed an interpretive dance.  Her older sister played Taps.  The entire royal family, the queen-mommy and king-daddy included, joined together to sing Ossey's favorite song, Joy to the World.  Ossey lay in a make-shift Nike box coffin, and the pall-bearer king-daddy carried it to the frigid garage, because the ground outside was too frozen to bury him.  It was a somber evening, and all in the royal family went to bed with quiet hearts.

In the middle of the night, or the very early hours of the morning, before the sun was up and while she was in a deep, deep sleep, the queen-mommy was awakened by a loud whisper and a nudge.  "Queen-mommy!" king-daddy said as he shook her awake.  She looked at him, and truthfully, king-daddy looked crazy.  His hair was standing up and he had the look of a crazy man on his face.  "Queen-mommy!" he said, "Ossey is ALIVE!"  And with that the eyes of king-daddy grew big and full of wonder.  "What do I do?!" he said.

Apparently the king-daddy had had trouble sleeping, his thoughts going back to Ossey and the princess-girl all night long.  He pondered the fact that Ossey had not, in fact, been eaten by the falsely accused loved-but-hated cat.  He wondered where he had been for the past three weeks to suddenly show up in the royal window sill.  He considered if the lizard had died by the hand of the cat, as thought, or for lack of food or warmth.  For some reason, the king-daddy crawled out of bed and went downstairs and into the 10-degree garage.  For some reason, he found the box with Ossey in it and opened it, staring down at the lifeless reptile.  And for some reason, he thought, "I wonder what would happen if I splashed a little water on him?"

And so the king-daddy took the lifeless lizard into the kitchen, and indeed splashed a little water on him, and ~ oh my word ~ the lizard was alive.

The princess-girl rejoiced the next day when the king-daddy shared with her the news, following a Bible story lesson on Lazarus.  She smiled from ear to ear as she renamed him Ossey Lazarus, and she sang this little song:

It's a miracle kind of day

Pets come alive and say, "Hey!"

The king-daddy reestablished the aquarium/terrarium/tank/receptacle.  A new claw-proof top was purchased.  Fresh crickets were acquired.

And they all lived happily ever after.