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I like wild life. I mean I have a biology degree and have been fascinated with animals from my earliest memories. No, really, one of pre-two-year-old memories is of finding a group of lady bugs at the base of a tree hiding under the grass that covered the base of said tree. But I like my wild life outside the house. The treaty Jon and I have with spiders is stay out of sight and you live, come too close and your life expectancy shortens. Being bitten by a brown recluse about three years ago has not softened my view on our eight legged cohabitants of the house. If I know at a glance that its a harmless spider then it just needs to not try to crawl on me. Honestly, very few things are allowed to crawl on me without some sort of retribution. If it climbs on me they have broken the pact and the penalty for that is usually a sudden, messy death. Which brings us to the lizard.

Lizard you say, what’s it doing in the house? Exactly. I mean I’ve found all sorts of things in the house: crickets, grasshoppers, praying mantis, lady bugs, true bugs, moths, beetles of various sorts, all of which were captured and deposited back outside. Millipedes, centipedes, silverfish, spiders, ants, 1 mouse, not all of which faired well. Wasps and bees are problematic because I know they mean no harm but they sting. Whether they are captured and released back into the wilds depends on the temperament of the wasp or bee in question. Grumpy insects get smashed, happy cooperative insects are set free. Which brings us to the lizard, I know I said that already, but its sort of fresh in my mind since it happened moments ago.

I was sitting at my little desk area that I’d been writing at earlier in the day. I was saving the work or something when movement caught my eye. I thought at first it was a large cockroach, not good, but then I got a better look at it and realized it was not a large cockroach, but a small lizard. Small is good in these circumstances. It certainly is more comforting than large. But we had a lizard in the house which was a first. I was calm in the beginning, but then I started over thinking. How did it get into the house? If the lizard could get in what other reptile could get in? Were there more tiny lizards in the house? I was thinking all this while I tried to herd the lizard outside onto the balcony area which was the closest outside door. Jon had joined me by now, brought to the scene of the lizard wrangling by me yelling, “Lizard, there’s a lizard in here!”

We had it almost out when Jon bent down to pick it up. Braver than me. I’m not afraid of lizards, but by then I knew it was a gecko and if you’ve ever been bitten by a large one, it hurts. Day Gecko’s are especially mean in my experience. It was a baby gecko, but I didn’t know what kind, some lizards look totally different as babies. So I said, “It’s a gecko, it may bite.” Then, of course, Jon didn’t want to pick it up, and while I was looking for something to shoo it out the door it made a break for it out underneath the front door. Jon opened the door and now the great lizard hunt was begun in earnest as we moved things in the vestibule trying to find the gecko. We found a gecko, but not THE gecko. It was a dead baby, so long dead it was desiccated and very dead. On one hand comforting because it wasn’t alive, on the other hand not comforting because that meant there were possibly a lot more baby geckos wandering about. Also, most unsettling we couldn’t find the first baby gecko. Since they can climb walls and cross ceilings it made it especially exciting to think where it could have wondered off to. But in the end we just assumed it would stay outside and we went onto dinner.

I apologized to Jon for freaking so badly. I mean I’m supposed to be the biology person, but there was just something about the lizard running past my feet that made me start disaster thinking. Disaster thinking is when you start with something pretty innocuous, even innocent and think about all the bad stuff that could come from it. Example: we have one live lizard in the house and one dead lizard in the house. They appear to be the same species of gecko which means we’ve had a batch hatch out in, or near our living area. So, first how many more are there and will any of them hide in the bed with us overnight? They’re reptiles and will be looking for warmth. Let me be clear if I roll over on a gecko of any size and feel it crawling over me I will scream like a girl and wield the first heavy object like a caveman. Then the thought was if the geckos can get in what else could get in and where the hell are they getting inside, well the front door is slightly off center and the weather stripping is nonexistent, so we’ll be fixing that. We are in an area of the country where coral snakes live, and though they are one of the least offensive snakes you practically have to step on them hard to get them to bite you they are very venomous and related to cobras. Jon and I are both from rural areas where movement on the ground is noticed and quickly identified since some of what is on the ground is deadly. So, see I’d started with one small, baby, gecko, and ended with a venomous snake crawling up in bed with us. Disaster thinking at its best. I used to do this years ago, but broke myself of the habit, but in one small reptile it all came flooding back, years of bad thinking.

Jon talked me down and was somewhat amused that I had freaked so completely. He’s usually the one freaking about things in the house and I’m the voice of reason, or the person who kills the scary thing for you, but now the tables were firmly turned. In fact as we left for dinner I said to him, “Welcome to my version of come kill the spider for me.” We put a towel in front of the space under the door which was big enough for mice as well as very slender snakes and vowed to fix it. But we also noticed an even smaller crack at the top of the door. The door simply does not hang straight in its frame. But we thought, the gecko’s gone, and went to dinner. I used my iphone to research geckos and found that we have, I believe, 17 native to the United States most of them imports either by accident or released from pet homes. Our house guest was a baby Tropical House Gecko. Once I knew what kind it was I was calmer about it. Knowing about something always makes me feel better.

We have a nice relaxing dinner out and come back home ready to enjoy our last full night of vacation. I walk inside the door and a small, pale, gecko runs past my feet. Did I mention I’m wearing sandals. I am not happy but I promised myself I wouldn’t freak again, but I hadn’t expected for the same lizard to make a repeat adventure. We begin to try and herd the gecko, but he’s having none of it. I lose sight of him, but Jon says, “He’s on my boots.” Not the ones he was wearing, but the pair by the couch. I blocked the lizard’s escape with a pillow. Jon moved a boot. Tropical House Gecko made another darting run. He was so small only about two inches I thought, “He’s small enough to go in a jar like an insect.” I was about to suggest it when the gecko got onto my big black bag that we’d brought down for a beach bag. I said, “That’ll do.” I went for the balcony doors and Jon picked up the huge bag with the lizard sitting on it. He moved carefully and the gecko sat there, then started running, but Jon shifted the bag so we had a lizard hamster wheel effect. He’s almost got the bag with gecko to the door where I’m still standing. I think very clearly as I’m being calm, “If the gecko jumps on me all bets are off.” But it stays on the bag, we get it out to the balcony and now what?

“See if it will get off onto the railing,” I suggest.

Jon was actually thinking about simply tossing the bag over board, so he told me later, but the gecko hops off on its on and scampers down the wall and out of sight, and into the wilds from which he came. We rush back inside, close the door, and have a moment of relief when I say, “It was the same gecko right?”

“Yes,” Jon says.

“It wasn’t a little bigger than the last one was it?”

He shakes his head and says, firmly, “No, same size, same gecko.”

“You’re sure?” I asked.

“I’m sure,” he says.

So, we had a Tropical House Gecko in the house. Maybe that’s why they’re alled house geckos.

[Jon here: I wanted to make it known that while Laurell was alternately Freaked and Calm during the adventure, she spent most of the time writing this blog laughing. If you can’t laugh at yourself…]