Eeeeeet's Alive!!!

I don't have a particularly bad attitude when it comes to reptiles. I like snakes, frogs, lizards - I don't know why - go figure ...

The only time I TOTALLY freaked out about an amphibian was a few years ago. I had put Charlie out with the patio light on - which tends to attract froggies to eat the bugs that are suicidally drawn to the light.

I made the MONUMENTAL MISTAKE of turning off the light before opening the door (thinking – oh, so cleverly that I would avoid buggies flying into my house) and letting Charlie back in.

Slammed the door …

and – boing!

It sort of bounced back. Our front doors flashing (I think that is what it is called) has a piece that sticks out and sort of hampers the door shutting – so I thought that was what it was.

Slammed it again – HARDER. Then a few more times for good measure … and because I AM STUPID.

BOING!

So, I decide it was time to put some oomph behind it and shoved … HARD. And, oddly, it sort of gave, but then bounced back?

Hmmmm?

So, I my INFINITE WISDOM I decided to OPEN THE DOOR and see if there was a problem.

Oh yeah …

There was a GIANT bullfrog groaning in the door. I had slammed the door on him at least four times, them pressed it on him as hard as I could.

He looked up at me with this WTF? sort of look and I screamed (totally like a girl) for Ryan.

I can still feel the 'goosh' as I shoved the door trying to shut it and cannot get the picture of a poor bullfrog with bulging eyes out of my head when I do.

GOOSHY.

I told him I could not get rid of a frog that I had halfway smooshed. So he got a broom and schooched it out the door and shut it.

My hero.

He went back a while later at my behest to see if it was still there – in the hopes that he had TOTALLY recovered his beat down and hopped off to happier, safer climes. He came back in and said that he was still there, alive and sort of hopping in circles because half of his body didn’t work.

I felt SO BAD! By morning he was gone – hopefully a cat had finished him off – we were too big of ninnies to put the poor thing out of his misery. And this coming from a girl who – without a conscious thought at all – pithed a frog and opened it up to watch its beating heart, then somehow killed it (I cannot remember if in this biology course we were left up to our own devices for this part) then dissected it – let me tell you – that was WAAAAY more fun than dissecting that cadaver (eeek! The smell, and the old, wrinkly HUMAN skin ….) but I digress …

I was on the computer this morning - a HUGE upgrade from lying in bed cocooned in blankets too ill to even read a book. After I finished something, I told myself that I needed to go clean up the kitchen.

It was fairly clean. Gary had a group of people over for a planning breakfast Saturday and is pretty good about cleaning up after himself, but he does not posses the gene to WIPE THE COUNTERS AND WASH DOWN THE SINK. I am unsure if any man possesses this gene, actually.

Loaded a few dishes into the dishwasher and as I lifted the last plate out of the sink - there was the CUTEST GECKO EVER!!!

They get into our house ALL THE TIME and I yell and yell at them that it is a death sentence. I yell the next thing I will be doing is dropping their jerkified body in the garbage can - but do they listen to me?

No.

But this guy - happy as a clam snacking on a bitlet of pancake, taking dainty sips of water that had collected in a pecan - of which he might have been snacking on also seemed pretty content to stay and just ... well veg and eat. He had moved a bit - so I was THRILLED that I could rescue a gecko before it succumbed to all the dust bunnies on the floor.

He was NOT HAPPY about the capture, though. Maybe if I had thrown in a piece of pancake?

I let him go outside and went in to finish the kitchen.

And just in case you think I'm lying about cleaning out the sink - not sure why you would think that, but it's so BRIGHT AND SHINY now!

All clean and amphibian free!

I have lived here six years and this might be the first gecko I have saved from a gruesome death in my home - I am so proud.

Frogs - now I like frogs better than geckos - and the geckos bug me when they break off their tails and run like the wind - leaving their tails all a wiggling to detract me from the gecko part that is trying to escape - I find it rather creepy.

So I have rescued a lot of frogs - the big ones - mainly because I really don't want to see what they would look like dead. I find itty bitty ones dead, all the time - covered in dust bunnies which I am assuming suffocated them.

I saved a frog just last week - and he clearly was happily content to try to live out his wee froggy life in my 'garden' in the great room.

Thing is? It is damn hard to catch a frog when it does not want to be caught - but I have become rather good at it - just call me crafty ...

The other thing? After you pick them up? THEY PEE IN YOUR HAND. THIS is what you get for saving a frogs life - froggy pee all over your hand.

You've been warned ....