With so much doom and gloom going around lately I thought I’d share a fun story about one plucky gecko.
The gecko was resting on my golf bag when I hauled it out of the garage and put it into the car.
I noticed it drop off and scamper away, or so I thought.
It was only when I took the bag out at the country club that I noticed Greg (that’s what we later christened him) was still clinging to the bag.
He leapt off and disappeared into the depths of the boot.
It’s probably worth mentioning that my wife has an absolute abhorrence for these rubbery creatures.
She’d rather face off against a snarling dog than one of these mosquito-munching ‘things’.
Back home later, I searched the car but could not find the little guy.
I was pretty sure he’d gone but four days later he reappeared at a cousin’s party (limited numbers).
Greg scurried across the foot of my 6-year-old daughter and she let out a scream that could have shattered glass had there been some around.
Fortunately, much to my wife’s relief, a brave young boy emerged to free the gecko.
That was Wednesday. On the Friday I saw the young bloke and thanked him for his noble deed.
He smiled sheepishly, laughed and smiled again. “Actually I didn’t get it out of the car,” he said.
A conundrum: do I tell my wife and daughter or not? My son would find this amusing, them not so much.
The truth had to come out and they paled noticeably, eyes widening as I revealed the news that the gecko was still in the car somewhere.
“You’d better get it out, I’m not joking,” was the gentle encouragement I received.
I had a mental images of myself with the vacuum cleaner trying to ‘hurricane’ the plucky fellow out of his hiding place.
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Then a strange thing happened.
When we returned home and started to unpack the car, there was Greg, perched happily on my wife’s laptop.
I gently lifted it out of the boot and he seemed in no hurry to leave.
However, he was home, only a few metres from where his great journey had begun.
It was six days later and it was obvious the effects of his ‘isolation’ had been beneficial and he seemed to have trimmed down a touch.
Anyway, eventually I flicked him off the laptop and he disappeared into the darkness of the garage.
What a journey: he’d been to Port Shepstone, Margate, Umtentweni and Shelly Beach and lasted six days.
I think the moral of the story is twofold: one, don’t give up when all appears lost; two, life can be unpredictable and what might at first look life-threatening could turn out to be a great adventure.
In these tough and turbulent times, keep the faith.
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