My Office Mate

I have the coolest animal in my office. His name is Chomper and he's a Blue-tongued Skink (a type of Australian lizard). Chomper is unique, but when I agreed to have him in my office, I had no idea how much pleasure he would give me. Not only is he a great conversation piece for people during meetings, he is the ideal office mate. He doesn't get mad when I borrow his stapler, he doesn't seem bothered that most of the time I work in the dark, and he doesn't care that I talk to myself.

When I first agreed to rooming with him, I thought he would be kinda quiet and maybe a little boring. He's nocturnal and well, reptilian. But he has turned out to be fascinating almost on a daily basis and I find myself strangley envying him on my most busy days....

A day in the life of Chomper:

1. He basks on the beach in the "sun". (He might think it is the beach and the sun, but it's really just a rock he lays on and there's a lightbulb over his cage).
2. He breathes. OK, so do all animals, but his breathing is special. It is really shallow and slow, until I put live food in, then it gets deeper and quicker.
3. He eats. All kinds of things. He loves crickets and canned dog food and hard-boiled eggs. He also likes fruit- especially raspberries and I only know this because several days a week his "lips" are red and there is no lipstick involved.
4. He climbs. A little branch up to the fake plant where the crickets hide. He's got a small brain, but he's smart enough to know where those wiley crickets are. He also climbs on his half log hidey thing and sometimes gets stuck between the glass and the log. He's not smart enough to know not to do that.
5. He does the best impression of a lizard that has been run over by a truck that I know of. His body is naturally flat and his scale pattern looks kind of like tire treads and when he isn't climbing, he is VERY still.
6. He smiles at me. OK, maybe he doesn't. But I like to think that he somehow recognizes that I am the one that keeps his cage clean and cuts up his food into tiny little pieces and he's glad about it.

I'm glad about it too and I think everyone should have some kind of a non-human animal in their office to make them more human, animals just seem to do that.