Chilling out

Geckoes are odd creatures. There's the little house lizard ones, which look rather amphibian. And there the huge ones with bright red and blue knobbles, which are loud enough to wake you up and in Thailand are called "Tokays". There's a whole nother story about me being secretly shocked that otherwise normal French people keep turkeys in the house.

A couple of days ago I met a tiny baby amphibian-like one in the kitchen. It was obviously terrified at the sight of me, and ran to the nearest dark hiding place.

Unfortunately this was the fridge I just opened.

Now, it hid quite effectively in behind the crisper drawer. The problem, if you happen to be a tiny amphibian-like creature, is that a refridgerator is not a place to spend much time. Its initially zippy running style slowed in the space of about 20 seconds to a sleepy plod, and then stopped.

By this time I had removed the crisper drawer and most of the fridge contents (eek). This baby lizard managed to slowly manouvre a eye around to look at the huge lumbering thing about to kill it as it froze to death.

I poked it. It fell upside down in a foetal curl and lay, still staring at me with one eye.

What else could I do?

I put in on the floor, got down on hands and knees and resuscitated it.

Thankfully this only involved a few (one-two-three-four-five rescue) breaths in its general direction and it perked up enough to stand up. Two more and it could lift its head, another and it scuttled away from this odd giant breathing on it. I closed the fridge to prevent a replay.

Even more thankfully, none of my colleagues chose that moment to walk into the kitchen.

An experience of one minute, yet a most satisfying result.

The gecko in the toaster did not do so well.