Bird and Lizard

I did mention that Naples was surreal, correct? We were taking a cab to dinner and in a traffic jam. I noticed that one of the bottlenecks was a double-parked driver's ed car. I felt a cold frisson go down my back at the thought of people learning to drive in Naples, whether the horror was at the poor student having to learn to drive "correctly" in a place where nothing is "correct," or whether my chill was due to all of the accidents that this inexperienced driver would cause. But that tells you nothing about the bird or the lizard, does it?

As I said, we're stopped in a jam and I noticed about five guys watching a bird on the sidewalk. I looked at the bird, and really, nothing spectacular, just an ordinary small brown bird. Then I noticed it hopping forward oddly and looked closer and realized it was facing off with a largeish lizard, nothing grotesquely big, but definitely larger than a California fence lizard. They skirmished back and forth, both showing determination. Eventually, the bird gave up the thought of this meal and flew away. Now one of the men stepped in to grab the lizard, which gave up the fight at that moment and scurried away, man stooped in hot pursuit. I don't know whether he ever caught up to it because the cab shot away, but it was a strange little scene in the middle of this mad big city.