Do… Do Your Lizards Wear Pants?

For the past five summers, I’ve worked in a camp’s “petting zoo” room. There are many reasons I love my job, but one of them is the hilarious and adorable things I hear from the kids, especially the youngest.

Most of our animals are secondhand from Craigslist or Facebook ads, and a lot of them are… less than “gently-used,” we’ll say. The lizards in particular often come missing bits.

This girl is about five years old.

Girl: “Why is the iguana missing her tail?”

Me: “It fell off when she was in her old home.”

Girl: “But how did it fall off?”

Me: “We don’t know. There was some sort of accident.”

Girl: *Confused whisper* “She… she maked in her pants?”

Me: “Not that kind of accident.”

My boss tells me that children saying they “need to make” is a Jewish-ism that came from Yiddish and not something gentiles say. So, for anyone who was confused, she was asking if the iguana had the potty sort of accident.