Intruders

It all started last week. While I was working on the computer in our office (read: surfing decorating blogs), Tim and Ben were snuggling on the couch in the living room. Suddenly, Tim calmly said, "Meagan, will you please come grab Ben so I can kill the lizard that just ran across my face?"

Oh.
My.
Gosh.

I ran in and grabbed the baby and Tim took care of the intruder. I'm not even sure how he caught it or what he did with it. The details seem fuzzy. I might have blacked out.

It took nine days before I could sit on the couch without freaking out every time my hair brushed my shoulder. Nine days is a long time to be jumpy. Tim tried to convince me that this was one very lonely lizard who lost his way and ended up in our living room. He had absolutely no lizard friends or family within a mile of our house. I wasn't convinced. Ben and I spend an average of three hours a day parked on that couch while I nurse him. Nurse the baby, and lookout for lizards. Okay, technically it was a gecko, but let's not lose perspective here, people!

I realize that not everyone is as offended by these little intruders as I am, but they completely creep me out. There's nothing cute about them. Maybe it's the fact that they don't have any eyelids. Maybe it's the way they can climb across ceilings, or the way you can see through some of them. Someone once told me geckos can make like a skunk and spray some gross smelling junk on whatever is threatening them. I'm not sure how true that is, but I DO know they can drop their tails when they feel threatened. I've seen it. Ew. Ew. Ew. I don't care how many mosquitos or bugs they eat, they simply aren't welcome in our home.

Just when I was beginning to drop my guard, it happened again. I moved a box in the foyer yesterday, and another of those disgusting (and fast!) little creatures came running out from behind it.

PANIC!

All I could think of was Antoine Dodson. Hide your kids, hide your wife... and hide your husbands.

My first instinct was to kill the thing. Then, it occurred to me that cleaning up gecko guts would be quite a bit grosser than spider guts. I decided to try and trap it in something until Tim got home. I ran into the kitchen and grabbed the first two tools I could find. A spatula and a glass pyrex bowl.

I made my way back into the foyer, passing Ben in the living room on my way. I think he either sensed my panic or the impending danger, because he started screaming.

I used the spatula to knock the gecko towards the front door, but after multiple attempts, it kept turning around and running back into the house. Ben and I were shrieking in unison. I pictured the way this would play out and realized that I couldn't throw the glass bowl down on the floor, and the gecko was too fast to catch any other way. I didn't have a non-breakable bowl that would form enough of a seal on the tile floor to trap the gecko inside. I didn't know what to do. I called Tim at work. No answer. DOESN'THEKNOWTHATINEEDHIMSOMETIMES?!?!?

There was only one thing left to do. I called my mom, who lives a block away. My dear, sweet mother wasn't really dressed to leave the house, but the combination of the panic in my voice and my child screaming in the background led her to the quick conclusion that I wasn't handling this one very well on my own. "I'll be right over."

Mom used a dust pan and broom to woosh the intruder back out the front door. She's braver than I am. I couldn't have gotten close enough to use the dust pan. I don't know what I'd do without my mom.

A few hours later, when Tim returned my phone call, my heart rate was still slowing to its normal pace. I told him the whole story. "That's two of those things that have somehow gotten INTO our house in the last few weeks!"

His response?

"Yea, and I killed one in our closet this morning, too."

I'm calling a realtor.