The Dead Gecko

I wasn't going to post about this, but now I feel like I have to. 2 weeks ago, I was vacuuming the living room under the curtains and a baby gecko ran out from under them! I watched it scurry to under our shoe storage and continued vacuuming - until I got to another set of curtains and saw a gecko lying there. I tried to shoo it away, but to no avail. He stayed firmly planted in his space and me poking him did nothing to get him going, either. It seems he was dead. So, here I am, with Kylie home, the big kids at school and a husband traveling, with a dead gecko (and a large one at that) in my living room. I don't really like geckos at the best of times. I have learned to tolerate them, but having a dead one in my living room is not great. I wasn't about to remove it from the house, but I figured there might be someone around our neighborhood who would be willing to, so I sent the following email:

Hey All,
I'm in 39/862 and have a dead Gecko in my living room (i'm guessing it's dead...it won't move when poked). I was wondering if anyone would be willing to come and remove it for me. I don't know what the going rate is for dead Gecko removal, but whatever it is, I'm willing to pay it! Let me know if you are willing...

I got 2 emails quickly back from friends in the neighborhood commiserating with me on the dead gecko (and unwilling to offer help, which I understand). I got a call from my next door neighbor who volunteered her high school girl to come over when she got home from school to come and remove it - stating that Ashley did that kind of stuff all the time for her and wouldn't mind in the least! Ashley came over when she got home from school, slid it onto the piece of paper and tossed it in the garden outside. I thanked her profusely and sent her a card made by Megan later in the afternoon with money to get a pedicure. A win/win situation.

HOWEVER, an hour or so later I got a call from a neighbor. Now, I've met this neighbor 2x's before and had in-depth conversations with her. Once here in the neighborhood and once in the thai grocery store where we were the only 2 expats. So, with this in mind, she calls and laughingly asks if I had gotten the dead gecko taken care of yet. The whole time it sounds like she is barely keeping herself from bursting into laughter. She says, "Clearly you haven't lived in Asia before if you can't even handle a dead gecko". I'm in the middle of 14 different things and she's going on and on about how inept I am in handling dead geckos. She says at one point, "I just had the best chuckle reading through your email. I wanted to...no, no, that would just be rude." So I tell her to finish her thought - no worries. She says, "Well, this email was just too funny that I wanted to know if I could forward it onto other friends so they could get a laugh, too." And I'm like, "Sure, why not..." So, then she asks who I am exactly and where I live and states that we haven't ever met. I'm like, "(insert name here), we've met and had 10+ minute long conversations in both the neighborhood and Carrefour." And she clearly doesn't remember, which is kinda the icing on the dead gecko cake.

And I have to say that I've been, laughingly, asked 2x's more how my dead gecko is. From other people. I have to say, aside from A who has them in her house and possibly Bri and Sarah (who I don't remotely know if they have geckos), would you be willing to remove a dead gecko from your house? Oh, and if any of you are needing a name for your garage band? The Dead Geckos has a nice ring to it. Just FYI.