Thursday, August 5th 2021

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So it’s my daughter’s turn to host the classroom pet until summer’s end.

Pascal the Gecko promised to be low maintenance and we love animals, so it was a no brainer to agree.

Some things I did not anticipate:

1) His butt is a decoy for his head, therefore I hope it’s not racist to note he has a raging case of “Zachary Disease.” (When your butt looks ex-zachary like your face.)

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2) Girlfriend is enamored of him. To wit:

Girl: Mom! Pascal is happy!

Mom: Oh good honey! How do you know?

Girl: He’s basking!!!

Mom: Oh?!

Girl: Yeah, and he just yawned. He’s so cuuuuuute!

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3) He is very handsome, expressive in his face, and charming.

Yep I said it; charming. I did not count on getting charmed by a reptile.

In fact, dude is ten years old! You gotta have some pretty hardcore survival skills to be a classroom pet and make it to ten years.

So there we are, home from the pet store with our first round of 20 large crickets, and the blood bath has begun. Pascal leaps into action, strutting around like a gladiator in his habitat now teeming with live food. He’s tilting his head, squinting his eyes, licking his lips.

Lips? Ok, licking the rims of his mouth.

He dials in on the first unsuspecting cricket, and I kid you not he wiggles his little head-like butt appendage just like a cat does before pouncing, and then pounces! Well, more like he strikes. He’s lightning quick and makes swift order of commanding the arena. We watch him crunch down on one cricket as its eye pops off. Crickets bite the dust left and right as the quaint little adorable and charming Pascal gobbles them down, one after the other. A stray cricket leg is strewn on the floor. It’s all quite something to behold.

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Me: Wow babe this is amazing. I can hardly believe it. And look! I’m just sitting here watching without taking any photos. I have no time to blog these days so I refuse to take any photos.

Cat: [Also gets totally engrossed in watching the drama unfold.]

Me: Dammit!

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It seems none in our family are immune to the drama, as they ply me with their own photos of “Look at that Cat looking at that gecko looking at those crickets!”

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Have I mentioned I probably have undiagnosed ADHD and am highly distractible?

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