One would think that after 15 months living in a place one could adjust to geckos, no luck. They move so incredibly fast and they come out of nowhere! Yesterday I just about jumped out of my skin when I saw one scramble along the molding and run into the closet. This one was about 4 inches long, which is pretty big for a house gecko. I had one in my classroom that was the size of a small paperclip, he was rather cute. But please try to imagine how one little gecko could disrupt learning in classroom.
Neither of the girls are fond of geckos and they quickly scream out for help when they find one in their room. Apparently the most common way geckos enter the house is through the air conditioning units but I haven’t told the girls this yet. Please be assured that we do not kill geckos, that is not the Buddist way. We use a glass to trap the gecko and then slide a piece of paper between the surface and the glass. In our house this has been designated as an adult responsibility.
My favorite Ahnika/gecko story occurred bright and early at 6 am on a school day. She was following Gary into the kitchen and she saw a gecko race down the from the ceiling to the wall, jump on Gary’s shoulders…race down his back to his heel and then race under the refrigerator! “I didn’t know they could jump! I told myself I could handle them because they just stayed on the walls and ceilings, now I am totally freaked out!” she exclaimed.
One evening I came home and Mikayla was just a little upset. She had been home alone or so she thought. She had found a gecko in her room. She managed to catch it herself -because one couldn’t just leave it be. It sounds like the catching process took her quite a bit of time. But the worst of it was that in the process of catching the small guy she had chopped part of the tail off of the gecko! She was so worried for him and felt just awful.
She has recently redeemed herself however. This weekend we were at the beach and had taken inter tubes from the sand into the water, we were just about to take off behind a boat when she found a small gecko on her inter tube- “wait, wait, I have to help the gecko!” She bravely took the gecko on her BARE HANDS and walked the 50 feet to shore for the non-swimming creature.
So although they are fast and startle us we are adjusting to the cute, little, harmless creatures. You all should really come and see them, up close and personal. Cockroaches are another story however….
