On Bearded Dragon Ownership

People who own reptiles, I have found, are disproportionately likely to have brightly-colored hair. On the day of the 2013 Virginia Reptile Expo, self-described as “one of the longest-running and most extensive reptile shows in the Mid-Atlantic region and [believe it or not!] the entire East coast,” the Richmond Raceway on Laburnum Ave was populated by the jarring hues of artificial dye, red bobs, purple man-buns, and vendors and buyers with tattoo sleeves and factory-ripped clothes and piercings on just about every body part but the earlobe. I possessed none of these things. I was 12 years old, and the bowl cut I later learned my mom deliberately shaped to make my cowlick stick up in the back was a natural, boring brown.

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Two weeks in advance of my attendance at this Mid-Atlantic reptile show, I gathered my parents in our living room to deliver a PowerPoint presentation I had aptly titled “Why Luke Should Get a Bearded Dragon.” I have looked extensively for these slides, which I failed to recover, yet I am certain that the title was in the third person. Perhaps I am so confident because my presentation was not an isolated incident, but rather the latest and only successful addition to my long-running and extensive series of pitches for pet ownership: “Why Luke Should Get a Guinea Pig,” “Why Luke Should Get a Hamster.” I believe at one point I was resolutely settled on a fennec fox, a miniature marsupial obtainable from only a handful of specialty breeders in the United States, within which the animal was only legal in a measly 13. But guinea pigs smelled and hamsters bit and fennec foxes were fennec foxes and, to mom’s knowledge, bearded dragons did none of those things.

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Per the PetSmart website, a bearded dragon can be procured for $54.99, or $79.99 on the condition that the bearded dragon is “very red”. I cannot recall whether the bearded dragon that caught my eye was “very red,” but I do recall that it cost $200, which at the time seemed to be a small price to pay for 10 to 15 years of resolute companionship, unwavering reptilian loyalty, and an unrivaled sense of personal fulfillment. My dad chatted with the vendor, whom I cannot picture save my impression that he was no exception to the general trend of tatted arms and dyed hair, while I attempted to recreate my own “Marley and Me” moment with the lizard in the cage, an uncanny and touching initial interaction in which boy and dog [bearded dragon] first lay eyes on one another, bonding almost instantly and laying the foundation for a human-animal relationship that will undoubtedly shape the lives of both parties involved. I have never seen “Marley and Me.”

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It was at the very moment Dad was persuaded that I developed cold feet. “Maybe I need a minute to think about it,” I stalled. “Let’s get lunch.” Dad asked the seller if we could put the lizard “on hold,” and he agreed. As all important decisions should be, this was one to be made over a Popeyes Classic Chicken Sandwich Combo with cajun fries, a biscuit, and a medium soft drink that was either Coke or Diet Coke depending on whether or not the seventh grade was early enough for me to have begun scrutinizing my own body. “What’s going through your mind?” Dad probably asked me, and I imagine I answered that “I was sure” at this point, vocalizing a level of commitment I did not yet feel. It would have been silly to renege on the decision at this point. I am stubborn. And I made a PowerPoint.

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My ownership of the bearded dragon in question was, in a word, ephemeral. After I had made my way through my sandwich, fries, biscuit, and medium soft drink, we returned to the Richmond Raceway on Laburnum Ave, cash exchanged hands, and I was handed a maybe-very-red-but-probably-not lizard in a small cardboard box with a handle on top. It was heftier than I expected. Even with lizard in hand, Dad’s and my work would not be complete, of course, until we had procured the appropriate food, habitat, and supplies. Fortunately, the Virginia Reptile Expo is a Mecca not only of frogs, snakes, and lizards but also one of crickets and cages. Dad and I sauntered over to another stand situated a convenient 20-or-so feet to the left, one of several dedicated to selling reptilian wares of various sorts rather than the reptiles themselves.

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It seems right to me that seeing the crickets I was to feed my chosen friend for the first time, recognizing that I had just signed up to pick up their squirmy little bodies every day for the next 10 to 15 years, wriggling against one another in a honeycomb-like formation that could have come straight out of a trypophobic nightmare, would have been the impetus for the realization that I had made a terrible mistake. Somehow, however, I do not believe this to be the case. In hindsight, I am unconvinced that I ever truly wanted to own a bearded dragon. Rather, I now suspect that the entire pursuit had been an extension of the belief that if I could, I should — that if I could not have my fennec fox then I should at least have something. Whether I recognized it at the time or not, I was desperately seeking an excuse, and I had found one: my deliverance came with six legs and smelled faintly of mildew and feces. “Dad, I don’t think I can do this.”

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My dad instructed me to go wait in the car with an air of what I understood to be faint disappointment and a devastatingly parental brand of I-told-you-so. I now recognize it, or perhaps reimagine it, as relief. He was not as convinced as he seemed. When Dad joined me in the car a good 10 or 15 minutes later, he told me that the vendor who sold us the lizard was not too keen on a refund; “a deal’s a deal,” and, after all, he had just made $200 off a bearded dragon that I’m not even sure was very red. Our dilemma was resolved only after a textbook case of maternal interference — tattoo man’s mother, apparently also a reptile enthusiast, overheard the conversation between her son and my dad and kindly pointed out that “this fine gentleman hadn’t even left the building”. I imagine the vendor said something like “c’mon, mom,” or at least he thought it, but he nonetheless relented, as all men do when mom is involved, and took the lizard back. With $200 returned to Dad’s pocket, I was unburdened of my long-desired yet hastily-regretted reptilian responsibility, and we headed home.

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I am tempted to say that I still think of the bearded dragon I briefly purchased from the 2013 Virginia Reptile Expo on Laburnum Ave, but I do not. I would like to say I wonder if, had I not come to terms with my mistake before Dad and I left the Richmond Raceway, whether today I too would have a purple ponytail and a copious number of unconcealable tattoos. I would like to say I wonder where he (it seems to me all lizards ought to be boys) ended up, whether he is still alive and happily domestic, or whether he met an untimely death on the early end of his 10 to 15 year lifespan. However, I do not. We got a dog instead.

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