Gecko Who Came To Breakfast

Thoughts on Thursday

A funny story with wildlife this week! The gecko who wanted to share my breakfast!

Hello everyone. I thought today I would take a break from my usual emails and blogs and share a funny experience that I had this week involving a gecko!

Now, if you don’t like lizards and geckos, that’s OK, I think you still will enjoy the tale of this one.

Monday morning, around 7 AM I was going to make myself some breakfast.
I got the bread and butter out of the refrigerator and was heading to the toaster when I thought I saw something move behind it on the counter.

Now, living in Florida as I do, my first thought was “Oh no, a cockroach!” (now if THAT thought grosses you out, just let it go and continue on!)

So I put everything down and moved the toaster.

Behind it was not a cockroach but a good-sized gecko (see the picture above). It was about 5 inches long including the tail.

Now I am wondering how he has managed to survive our five cats and get all the way into the kitchen!! So I congratulated him on that feat, then set about trying to catch him.

If you have never tried to catch a lizard before, let me just say that it can be a bit of a challenge. They can be really fast and this one was no exception! He darted behind our purple Kitchenaid mixer which weighs A LOT, but I was determined to get to him.

I gently pulled the mixer forward, hoping that he was not going to get squished. I got it all the way to the front of the counter and, NO GECKO!! Where was he? I tipped the mixer over and no gecko inside either!. Then, as I was righting the mixer again, I saw him, staying as still as he could against the base of the mixer.

I quickly put my hands over him and gently dislodged him from the mixer.

Good, now I had him cupped in my hands. Whew!

Suddenly he managed to squeeze himself between my fingers and jump onto my chest!

“OK,” I thought, “Now I have him again!” and I covered him with my hands. I started toward the front door with him fighting to get out of my hands. I kept reminding him that if he got loose in the house, he could most likely become a snack for the cats, but he wasn’t listening.

Finally, I shifted him into being under one hand so I could open the door. I managed to get out of the front door and closed behind me.

Now, you would think he would be happy to be outside. However,  rather than jumping onto the philodendron leaf when I opened my hands, he ran up my arm and into my hair.

So now, here I am on the front porch, shaking my head and my hair, trying to locate him. Luckily there was no one to see this crazy dance I was doing as I worked to locate him and extract him from my hair. It took me quite a while to find him get him untangled because he just kept burrowing deeper into my hair. I didn’t want to hurt him as he continued to wind my hair around his body!!

At last, I got the last of the hair from around him and he jumped onto the philodendron leaf and ran off.

“You’re welcome!” I called after him.

As I later related the story to my husband he asked if I got a video!

I said I was a little too preoccupied to video the whole thing. However, it would have been a great video!!!


With joy and gratitude,
Dawn

P.S. I hope you enjoyed my tale of the gecko!
Laughter is so healthy and restorative! If you want to know more about how laughter benefits your body, check out my blog “Laugh Your Way To Health” by clicking here