Saturday, October 11, 2008

Le Gecko est mort. Vive le Gecko.

The gecko who lives in my bathroom is dead. I accidentally stepped on it...and will try to stop shuddering long enough to share the details...

A day or two after we moved into the new house, a gecko charged RIGHT AT ME in the tee-tiny bathroom and made me pee in my pants. It was horrible...like a disembodied pinkie finger running across the 1950s linoleum! After that, I learned not to wait until the last minute and to turn on the light and tap my foot around a lot to let him know I was coming in. Never a big one for going barefoot (against my dad's rules when we were little growing up in freezing cold New Hampshire!), I haven't gone barefoot EVER since the gecko made his presence known.

I wear shoes in the shower. I keep sandals by my bed for my many nocturnal trips to the bathroom, even though the potty is only five feet from my pillow.

Well, my diligence paid off because on one of last night's sojourns (and there were more than usual, thanks to two glasses of post-wedding rehearsal Lambrusco), I must have stepped on the Restroom Reptile. When I flipped on the light this morning, I was greeted by a flattened lizard whose insides were now on the outside.

Only Falisha, who shares my PHOBIA about lizards and would rather stand in a bucket of bugs than have a lizard on her, will understand the simultaneous (and equal amounts of) disgust and relief that washed over me after the Initial Full-Body Gross-Out.

Bethany, and all other normal family members who have a rational understanding of lizards, will be proud that I overcame my loathing and repulsion to gather the poor wafer-thin creature and its internal organs and give them a watery send-off to Gecko Heaven...and flushed three times, for good measure.

Heading to Red Bud Park, even though I'm sick and can barely swallow,
The Gecko Killer

5 comments:

Kirsten said...

You better not be sick on Monday...I'll have to share this story with the faculty! No empty threats either. I can't believe you are a killer of an innocent little lizard! Oh, that poor thing, now residing in his watery grave...I do hope you used Karen's bathroom to flush him off to lizard heaven. :-)
Your -can't stop laughing- maybe friend!

anne said...

Bravo, le courageux, la Fille Gecko Meurtrier.

Very Funny Kristy!!!

Ferny. said...

No. Gross. I don't mind alive lizard, but squished lizard is not okay. I hate stepping on anything that's alive. Shoes or no shoes. Bugs, lizards, the opossum my dog layed in front of my front door in high school. In fact, I'd really rather avoid simply walking on someone's back.

I'm glad you won't be plagued by your fear of your bathroom buddy though. That restroom wasn't big enough for the both of you. Really, it isn't.

Sandra said...

Waaaa. No words can describe what I am thinking. I feel your disgust and am so happy to hear you were wearing shoes and did not know what happened until afterwards. Imagine you had noticed while hearing the 'squuuash' .... ahhhh. happy thought. happy thought.

Anonymous said...

I am sitting here shaking and shivering at the thought the lizard touched your shoe. Did you consider throwing them away?

However I am beyond relieved that he is gone, and I can start visiting you again. :) I'm kidding, that's not why I haven't visited you.

Don't these critters go somewhere when it gets cold outside? Underground, Mexico? somewhere? I also want to know how the gecko was surviving in your bathroom. It had to be eating something. Which is another scary thought.

I also want to share a brief story with you. I've been looking around online for the last 2 years on how to get rid of gecko's completely, not very much success, when I ran across a story. This is going to gross you out. A lady, who like us is terrified of geckos, opens a cabinet in her kitchen to grab a coffee mug. She gets the mug and the lizard crawls out of the cup and onto her hand. The rest of the story ends with her brushing the lizard off of her hand and standing on the couch until her husband came home from work. She said she had to keep an eye on it so she could get it out of her house.

I would have freaked out. I really don't mind them being on earth, but why can't they hang out in the woods, with folks who don't mind that sort of thing, instead of being on my house, and in my space.
The reason i'm terrified of lizards, In my tomboy phase(lasted about a year), I put on my baggy jeans, only to have a lizard crawl up my leg. I would have chosen amputation, but my parents said it wasn't an option.

I will never forget that day. And to this day, I do not leave clothes on the floor anymore. So mom is happy, and I am happy.

~~Falisha