WATFORD CITY, N.D. — Have you ever stood in the kitchen and worked to untangle a lizard from your 9-year-old’s long hair while trying to remain calm in the face of company?

“It’s fine, Mom, he likes to hide up in there,” my daughter reassured me as I smiled nervously at my brother-in-law, who had stopped in for a visit and consequently was thrust into meeting our daughters’ new pets.

“Uh, OK, but, well, he’s really tangled, I don’t want him to get hurt,” I replied as I tried to gently unwind his little scaly legs from her blond strands without freaking us both out (the lizard and me, that is).

The rest of the people in the house? Completely unfazed, especially my brother-in-law, who, along with my husband, has probably had every creature imaginable live in their childhood home at some p

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