Life with Q as a Teenager

I'm Bad and I Know It — After I graduated from college I took a year off to earn money for graduate school. I moved in with my mother who did not share Q's love of a toasty room :0) Since his cage was no longer an aquarium and was now an open wire cage he was never warm enough. I ended up encasing the cage in expensive plexiglass but it was not enough. Q did not grow much that year and he would always be smaller than any other iguana his age. He did get a good diet now though because the stores in Pittsburgh sold greens like dandelion and collard. He also told me he was entering his first mating season by biting me on the nose. Crunch! And he would not let go. I was fine though - luckily he had a small mouth (but very sharp teeth).

I Like The Car! — I was off to graduate school and Q came with me to Ohio. He loved to ride in the car but that had to stop when I got my stick shift (he crawled under the clutch pedal when I was driving). Q also continued his mating behavior and bit me on my cheek the day before I started graduate school. By this time I had discovered Melissa Kaplan's page and I e-mailed her about giving him up. Her response made me realize that I was the one who had made the decision to get Q and I was not going to toss him away like the people Melissa got e-mails from every day. I also found the #iguana chat room on IRC and learned I was not the only person that loved iguanas.

Yes, I Am Climbing Up The Wall — Unfortunately as Q got bigger the more he was destroying things. I came home one day to find Q had biten a hole in the window screen and there was a hole the size of an iguana. I was sure he had escaped but I ended up finding him. His mating behavior got to the point where I no longer put Q up to my face and I no longer let him climb on me. I was always afraid he would bite my face. I also started to find out that it was really hard to find people to watch Q. No matter what I tried it ended in disaster.