A Gecko Named Gordon

There are many things about The Husband worthy of admiration. He is truly brilliant, yet he has a wonderful way of explaining a situation to you without making you feel stupid. He is a real out-of-the-box thinker that sees problems from angles that most us could never even imagine, yet he is perfectly happy to walk away from ownership of these solutions and allow others to assume credit. He is incredibly handy, especially considering he is a Jew, and he is usually willing to try new things, mostly because his intellect causes him to bore easily and the new and untried provide challenges. Yes, there is much about The Husband to admire. His interactive skills when it comes to the smallest of nature's creatures, however are not usually worthy of praise. My man has a genuine phobia of the creepy crawlies!

It usually is quite manageable. He screams "spider" or "wasp" and I come running with tissue, vacuum hose, or can of Raid at the ready. Squeamish I am not, so it has become understood in our relationship that I kill the bugs. (An aside to my dear friend Twin Son's Better Half-Yes, I kill them!! You are the only one with enough karmic energy to save the little buggers from a hellish and devious death!) We have a good division of marital labour that works. He does the banking and I annihilate the critters. It has served us fairly well over the years. Ok! There was that one time when he almost drove us into a tree because a large, green preying mantis found her way onto the inside of the driver's side window, but those incidents are rare. And then-there was our stop today in Costa Rica.

The six of us decided to charter a private tour to show us a good chunk of the country. We were all set for a wonderful day roaming through the local markets, a banana plantation and a river tour of the rain forest. Our friends at Okey Dokey Tours (swear to God! I couldn't have made that name up if I tried for a year!) provided is with a great driver, a sterling guide named Harrison, and most importantly, an air conditioned 8 seater van. As we piled into the vehicle, The Husband chose to park himself beside one of the windows. As I slid in next to him, I noticed a small gecko had made himself comfortable on the window ledge inches from The Husband's arm. The poor little guy was just taking in some sun. Keenly aware of his history, I quietly asked my man if his little seat companion was coming along for the tour. Well, that was clearly the wrong approach. The man jumped five feet and wedged me between himself and the door of the van. He kept pushing against me (not in a good way!) all while I kept attempting to calm him down so that I could corral the scared creature and free him from a car-full of panicked Canadians. Gordon (I named him for Michael Douglas' character in Wall Street) was not about to sit still for the commotion and made his way to the rear of the van, where my equally terrified friend was sitting. She was none to happy with Gordon's flight and she moved into a similar pattern as The Husband's. By the time that Gordon had fled and order had been restored, his legend had already grown to ridiculous proportions. According to The Husband, he had hair and long fangs. He had huge eyes and a longing to suck all of the life juices from his body. The bloody thing was the size of my thumb and wouldn't hurt an ant, but such was the terror in The Husband's mind.

Our friend the social butterfly was so amused by the events of the day, that he bought The Husband a t-shirt sporting Gordon's image for him to wear all around the ship as penance. Being the great sport that he is, The Husband complied gracefully. As they say in Costa Rica, "Pura Vida"-It's all good!