FIRST SQUIRRELS, NOW GECKOS…

So the plan for last weekend was to go fishing.  It was a free pass all weekend - no license required - and even though I am not the biggest fan of fishing, I was looking forward to it.  Mainly because my boyfriend said I could take his kayak out.  Personally, I think he did that just so I wouldn’t talk his ears off - I do not like being idle and if yakking gives me something to do, I’ll do it.  And quite honestly, the bait he was going to use looked absolutely disgusting and smelled worse.  The jar looked like it contained preserved aborted fetuses.  And I was sure if I had to use that to bait the hook, with what it looked like, I would puke right there.  Even typing this I’m getting nauseous.  Anyway, we pull out all his rods, I pick the ones I’d like to use - complete with “Those are for little kids” comment from my boyfriend.  To which I answered, “Have you seen my arms?  I gots little T-Rex arms.  These will be perfect.  Although you’ll have to teach me how to use them.  Last time I used a fishing pole it got tossed into Pott 2 when I cast the line and I was forbidden to go fishing with my father ever again.  Honestly, I don’t know what Dad’s problem was.  The stupid pole only cost $5 and the reel didn’t work very well anyway.  You rotate it forward, right?”

And that was when my boyfriend offered to bring the kayak/canoe boat thing.   Well, I call it a canoe, cuz to me a kayak has a cover with a hole in which the person sits, rolls the kayak over and then it’s a fight for your life when your upside down trapped in a boat.  This “kayak” doesn’t have the death invoking cover.  It’s open and I’m sure I would feel safer in it.

…I just realized why he offered to bring the kayak…

Anyhoo!  Why does a picture of a gecko in the middle of the road have anything to do with fishing?  I could say it was because that’s how rednecks find their bait; or that’s how hill billy’s get their fishing snacks, but it was neither of those.  

We didn’t get to go fishing.

Our area had just gone through some hellacious rain and really high winds.  Nothing bad if you didn’t have dead trees in your yard.  Unfortunately, my boyfriend’s neighbor did and it split in half covering the roadway.  Not a big deal - there’s more than one way in and out of the neighborhood - but the neighbor didn’t know it had fallen (neither did we - it was upright and fine the night before.  It was how we had gotten home from the bar).  It must’ve happened overnight because my boyfriend noticed it when another neighbor had to back up and take a different route out to the main road.  I was inside making sandwiches for our fishing trip when he came inside and told me what happened.  I asked if the neighbor knew and my boyfriend said he knocked, but there was no answer so he was just going to get it chopped up to clear the road.  I finished making our fishing lunch and went outside to help.

Once I got a load of small branches gathered into the trailer, I hauled it off to the dump.  Because it had rained the night before, there were puddles everywhere.  Birds were bathing, squirrels were getting drinks.  Those squirrels were either dying of thirst or they weren’t too afraid of the very loud tractor I was driving, because two of them just stood in the puddle staring at me.  Even when I sped up to go around them, the squirrels did not move.  It was like they were challenging my position as a keystone species or something.  Or maybe they wanted a ride in the trailer - they were eyeballing the branches pretty hard.

That was one trip.  The third trip had me ripping around corners to get some wind blowing on my face, wildlife be damned.  If the squirrels wanted a ride, they were gonna have to grab a branch and hang on for dear life.  We had been going at that damned tree for HOURS and it seemed like it was never ending.  It was getting really muggy and it was getting very hot.  Poor Buddy had to be forced into the house because he wasn’t listening to either one of us.  When my boyfriend came back from a dump run, Buddy made like he was going to run out into the road and I shouted at him.  My boyfriend heard me over the roar of the diesel engine, slammed on his breaks which sent a tool box sailing out onto the road.  And that was the start of us getting pissy because it was just getting gross outside.  We both would have rather gone fishing, but no one else was going to give the older neighbor a hand; if the amount of vehicles trying to go in either direction was any indication (and none offering help or even asking what happened - which is what annoyed me more than the humidity), and the road needed to be cleared.  

On the final run to the dump with the tractor, I saw a gecko dart from the side of the road.  I slowed to give it a chance to scurry on by.

It did not.  If anything, it was doing a gecko impersonation of “deer in the headlights.”  The damn thing froze in the middle of the road.  Like, the LITERAL middle.  There wasn’t enough room to go around behind it without dropping branches from the trailer I was hauling and if I tried to cut him off and he darted…well, it wouldn’t have hurt the vehicle I was driving, but I kinda like geckos and I would be heartbroken if I hit one.  Don’t roll your eyes.  I cry when I hit frogs on the highway during a summer rain at night and I will slam my brakes to prevent running over a squirrel, spilling hot coffee onto my driving instructor. It was ok - he was a critter lover like me, so I was forgiven.

Anyhoo, so this gecko is hogging the road horizontally and I’m hot, sweaty, and just want to get my butt out onto the water rowing until my heart was content while my boyfriend fished.  I wanted to get fried and have him put lotion on my body and if the “lotion” went elsewhere, then oh well.  At least we’ll be having fun.  But as it sat, both of us were pretty irritable so that probably wasn’t going to happen.

“Dude, move your ass,” I yelled at the gecko.  Why I thought yelling at a lizard was going to get it to move when the noise from a BadBoy lawnmower hauling a trailer full of branches didn’t even faze it.  The gecko stared at me and it’s body began changing color.  

“Really?  I can CLEARLY see you.  Changing colors isn’t going to confuse me.  I’m not a color blind donkey.”  No, just an idiot still shouting at a gecko over a lawnmower…  I figured maybe inch forward at a high rpm would get it to move.  I didn’t want to hit the walking wallet, so I turned the mower towards the gecko’s behind, making sure I wouldn’t nip its tail.  I put the mower into rabbit mode and pushed forward for a moment (running with Buddy while driving it, I got good at stopping the mower on a dime).  I was sure that would have scared it - why I don’t know, the squirrels weren’t impressed earlier…

The gecko wasn’t either. By now, it had started to turn blue.  Because, you know, it doesn’t believe me when I tell it I’m NOT a color blind donkey.

…jackass…

I figured since all it was doing was changing its colors, the gecko wasn’t going to be scurrying to the other side of the road any time soon; and since it didn’t change it’s mind at the last second like squirrels do, it was committed to laying claim to the road as it’s own personal domain.  Or the gecko was doing the wildlife version of Robin Hood.  In either case, I didn’t have time for it’s foolishness - besides, what the hell would a gecko want as a toll to use the road?  I wanted to salvage whatever time my boyfriend and I had for getting to a body of water so he can fish and I can throw a pole in the water…I mean, take the kayak out.  I inched around the road pirate and noticed it puffing itself up.

“You do realize, I can crush you, right?  I mean, just an accidental, derpy twist of the handles and “oopsie,” you’re roadkill.  You know this, right?”

The gecko’s response was to puff itself more.  I think it thought it was the Arnold Schwarzenegger of the reptilian world.  Or it thought it was some gangster idiot who thought being all showy was going to intimidate me, like it was saying, “You wanna go?  You wanna go?  Let’s go!  Come on, I ain’t scared of you and your death wagon.  Let’s go!  Come for me, bitch.”

“You are not the least bit scary.  I’ve half a mind to make you my pet.”  The gecko puffed a bit more and widened its stance.   That was when I noticed the hind end of the gecko flexing and something coming out from under its tail.

Initially I thought it was laying an egg, but then logic took over.  Why would a lizard lay an egg in a wide open area where any ol’ predator can get to it?  Seriously?  When I realized it was “taking care of business,” I felt like a heel.  The poor gecko was trying to poop and was having performance anxiety ‘cuz I was hanging around like an idiot.  I apologized to the gecko for interrupting its potty break and continued on my way.  It was an exposed spot to defecate - it clearly could have been eaten by a predator if there was one nearby. Why would it pick the middle of the road to poop?  Even a cat would have been able to pounce on it. I went around it, and was three feet away when it dawned on me why the gecko decided to take a shit.

“Oh you’re GROSS!” I shouted in the direction I had left the pooping gecko.  “I wasn’t trying to eat you!  I don’t even WANT to eat you!”

Idiot…