Two days ago, I noticed a tiny gecko crawling up the wall next to my bed. I promptly got a glass from my kitchen, carefully corraled the wee beasty and gently set him on a hibiscus bush in my yard.
He wasn't more than two inches long. As he plopped down onto a leaf, he flickered his tongue in the air, sampling his new environment. I left him there, and I felt the sort of satisfaction you get from doing the right thing.
Last Friday morning I flew out of West Palm Beach airport to Birmingham, Alabama, to attend Murder in the Magic City. When I turned my phone back on after the flight, my contractor and friend Yvonne had sent me this terse message:
Ur bedroom wallplate is full of eggs.
And the photo above.
See, I had asked her to remove some old wallplates that covered junctions for phone hookups. She did, and that's what she found.
Ugh.
I called her promptly. Yvonne said, and I quote, "The exterminator was here and he has NO idea what kind of eggs those are."
Well, I do. They are gecko eggs. I looked them up on my Blackberry. I'm pretty positive that the little guy I rescued was part of a big family. So I instructed Yvonne to put all the eggs in a plastic tub I had fitted with a piece of screen mesh.
I'll let you know when/if they hatch. Meanwhile, while I was more than pleased to rescue ONE gecko. I'm certainly happy I won't wake up to an entire army of them marching over my face!
Ugh, ugh, and double ugh!
