Here's My Card to Prove I Ain't Crazy!

“Do y’all know what an iguana is?”

The urgent knock had startled me and now this little peanut of a southern girl was standing on my porch, frantic in the search for her pet iguana.

“He got off his leash and I saw him run in this direction.” Her face held back tears as she pointed to my front gate.

It was already 9:00 and I was in my nightgown, settled in for the rest of the evening. Hiding behind the door, I told her she was welcome to go into my yard to look for her lost pet, but I couldn’t help her. I took a breath to offer her my flashlight, and she went off like a firecracker!

“Gotcha, didn’t I? I ain’t got no iguana! I was just teasin’ ya. I ain’t gonna hurtcha now, ‘cause I’m five feet nothin’ and wearin’ pink, so don’tcha all go thinkin’ bad things now.”

I know my mouth dropped open, even if she was only five feet nothin’. I thought, what kind of nut is this child and what kind of parents would let her out this time of night in those clothes to hunt for an imaginary iguana?

I felt sorry for her, standing there in a little pink tee-top with spaghetti straps on such a cold night. Just when I was tearing up, she was off and running again.

“I cain’t see ya very well, but I know you’re smilin’ behind that security door, ain’tcha? I just know you’re smilin’! Now, here’s my card to prove I ain’t crazy. Come on, now...take it.”

Like any other fool, I opened the door wide enough to take the card. The moment it was in my hand and the door was shut, she began rambling again.

“Ya see on that one side where it says ‘20,000 points’? Well, that’s what I’m shootin’ for. And on the other side there – that’s my name and that proves I ain’t crazy, see? You ever been to Cancun? Me neither, but I’m goin’ once I get them 20,000 points, and this is how I’m gettin’ ‘em. You like chicken? Do ya? Well, you just grab on to my wing and off we go.”

She stuck out her elbow like a chicken wing as she said, “Grab on,” and did a little chicken dance.

I read the entire card, wondering exactly where it said she wasn’t crazy. She interrupted my reading again.

“Now give me back that card, and you take this one. This here is how you’re gonna git me them 20,000 points.”

I complied, still in shock over the lost iguana and the chicken dance.

“Now every one of them purple boxes has a number in it, and you tell me which of those numbers you like and when you tell me those numbers, I get to double ‘em. Then I’m off to Cancun!”

Wait a minute. Didn’t she say earlier we were both going to Cancun...wasn’t that her promise when she offered me her chicken wing? If I don’t get to go to Cancun by giving her double points, then I’m not buying anything.

As I stood there in my befuddlement, she continued babbling on about winning this trip to Cancun. Suddenly, after looking at the card for several minutes, it hit me.

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You’re selling magazines?”

“Yes, Ma’am, but they’re really good ones, and by doubling the points of the ones you pick tonight, I get to go to Cancun when I reach my 20,000 points.”

The peanut was selling magazines. I was standing in my warm house in my nightgown, letting all the heat out, listening to a nutcase trying to sell me magazines.

“I’m sorry I can’t help you, but I can’t afford it right now. I wish you luck though. I hope you get to Cancun.”

“Well, that’s right nice of y’all. You have a good evenin’, and I’ll be off tryin’ to get me that Cancun trip from some of your neighbors.

As I watched this little lunatic leave my porch in search of her 20,000 points, I felt sorry for her. I felt doubly sorry for myself. That could have been my Cancun trip.

I wondered if my pouting lip showed through the security door.

THE END