Beware of Toilet Iguanas

Here at Phantom Sway don’t shy away from the weird topics.  Even if that topic is toilet iguanas.

And then it got weird

Toilet Reptile
Image Credit: Alberto Moncayo Young

Yes you read that correctly. Toilet. Iguanas. Iguanas in your toilet.

Actually it’s not just iguanas. It’s all sorts of reptiles as well as a few of the more skeevy mammals.

Most recently, in Florida (where else?) Ingrid Cepeda and Ryan Zubrin came home to discover they had a toilet iguana.

Dania Beach couple finds iguana in toilet

The scared couple then dialed 911. A recording of the call captured their disbelief.

Operator: “Broward County Regional Communications. May I help you?”

Ryan Zubrin: “Yes. I was transferred here from 911. Me and my fiancée, we just got home, and there’s like a giant iguana in the toilet, and we really don’t know what to do or if it’s gonna bite or how to get it out.”

“At that point, I wasn’t sure if it was alive, if it was dead,” said Zubrin. “I didn’t even know what kind of reptile it was.”

Broward Sheriff Fire Rescue answered the call and removed the animal.

Way to step up, dude. You called 911 because you found a lizard in your toilet. Time to turn in your man card. A gunshot victim was bleeding out somewhere and got put on hold because you had something icky to deal with.

A woman outside a burning tenement is shouting “Save my baby!”

We’ll get right on that, ma’am, after we catch the lizard in Ryan’s crapper. 

Not so "giant" toilet iguana
Not so “giant” toilet iguana

Even though this is a lousy picture—no doubt Ryan was probably trying to take it from three rooms away—you can make out the toilet bowl. We’re all hopefully familiar with the general size and shape of this device. Considering that the reptile is fully inside the bowl and even partially obscured by the rim, it should be evident to everyone that this is not a “giant iguana.” If the iguana would be in danger in the presence of a human brave enough to flush the toilet, the word “giant” is not even close to accurate. Perhaps if the average iguana were the size of a banana, you could say this was a particularly large iguana. “Giant” would still be well wide of the mark. Ryan’s herpetological prowess is at best unreliable.

 Zubrin said he thinks the iguana got in through the pipes. “I would imagine it would have had to come in through the toilet,” he said. “It would be pretty hard for an iguana that size to actually get under the door and slip past us.”

Whoa. suddenly he’s Steve Irwin now that the “danger” has passed.

“I’m surprised you didn’t go into labor when you saw it,” Zubrin is heard telling his fiancée in the video.

She replied, “If it was a spider, probably.”

Well, yeah. Spiders.

Shudder.