One of our Dets, Ken Ferrell, was a good cop. And a karate master. And a lover of unusual pets. In the Detective's office, where he worked, he had a terrarium set up. Anytime you walked by you'd see some new--and usually frightening--critter he'd acquired. To Ferrell, lizards, snakes, things most of us thought repulsive, were as cuddly as a baby kitten. Once he even had a tarantula named Lurch.
Ken would let the hairy monster, as big a teacup, walk all over him. And he tried to get others to share a little quality time with the beast, too. Most like me, would like to see how much shoe the thing could hold up with a 230 lb cop standing in it.
Feeding days, Ken would capture a big palmetto bug, or several lesser nasties and throw them in the terrarium. Lurch would come instantly alive, stalking the meal until he'd trap it in a corner, then one leap and it was chow time.
One day Ken came in with a new tasty treat: a chameleon. The chameleon we named Speedy Gonzales. The little fella wasn't but about two inches long and we figured he was dead lizard walking.
When Speedy was dropped into the terrarium, he looked around, saw his adversary, and stood dead still. No good. The spider made an immediate rush for the snack and gave his signature leap. And landed on nothing. Speedy was using his suction-cup feet to hang safely out of reach, up on the glass wall.
Lurch looked at the lizard a few minutes, then turned his back to walk off. Just what Speedy was waiting for.
He lept from the wall on Lurch's back, and did a most violent Mexican hat dance--stomping, kicking, biting--until Lurch fell to the floor in confusion and exhaustion. And Speedy returned to the glass wall.
This cycle went on all day. Lurch would recover, stand up, and Speedy would do another fandango on the bedraggled hide.
The next morning, when the office was opened, Lurch was laying on the terrarium floor, eight legs in the air, stoney dead. And Speedy was scouting around the cage, looking for his own tasty treats.
"Damn," Ken said, " I paid good money for that thing." Then, being Ferrell, he shook his head, smiled and said, "Guess I should've given him some karate lessons."
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