our new pet, spiderman
i would never have willingly admitted a new pet into our home.
however, soon after arriving home this summer, i wandered into the kitchen for some enjoyable midnight nachos, and as i flicked on the light, my eye caught a flicker of movement.
oh please not a cockroach. i didn’t want to wake charles up and i certainly wasn’t up to killing it myself. or was i? bravely, i looked at the place where the commotion was, and saw that it was a cute, little gecko, trembling against the wall. LOVE IT! love it even more that it is not a cockroach!
i like gecko’s so much that i don’t even mind that they do little poos that we have to clean up in the morning. i find it endearing that they lick off sweet bits from lolly sticks or liquid sugar spashes. i give them all sorts of freedoms my own children do not enjoy. the later bedtimes for one thing and the permission to wander around (naked!) in the pantry is another. last night i was rummaging around to throw some sparkling water into the fridge to replace the bottle i had just drained when i saw a little flick of a tail and knew that gecko had either grown (A LOT), or was having, bless him, a party. HE HAS FRIENDS! friends that poop tiny poos also.
part of my love for the geckos is the gratitude that they aren’t cockroaches. i just dont like that cockroaches:
– grow their skeleton on the outside of their body and shed it when they outgrow it.
– have a tube shaped heart that can even stop without the cockroach dying
– have white body fat that looks exactly like what my worst fears have imagined my own body fat looks like
– have a brain spread throughout its body, most of it along its belly, which means that if you stomp on the head of a roach, it will still live for as long as one week, eventually dying from starvation or thirst. like i needed that guilt!*
* all this information except the bit about my body fat provided my andrea pheasant, friend, teacher and cockroach expert extraordinaire.
geckos are cute and i love watching them try to maintain their balance when they scamper along the walls. i sometimes try to listen for their suckers pop popping as they move. they are like very cute spiderman, but with better costumes. spiderman leaves messy web behind, geckos leave tiny poos.
last night i left out a warm chocolate chip for my geckos. i am very fond of them.
