Actually, I’m not really sure of Jimmy’s gender but since his personal characteristics were bold and masculine, we called him Jimmy. One of the very many positive things about our relationship was he never tried to sell me insurance. As a matter of fact I never heard him make a sound. I used to rent an apartment further up the mountain (mauka) where the members of Jimmy’s species were all brown. Not, mind you, that I have against being brown, (I mean this is Kos, right?) but the brown ones make a lot of noise in the silence of the night. Mating calls or territorial warnings, who knows? (Someone here probably does, but not me, nor do I really care.) Anyway, they are loud enough to disturb ones sleep on occasion. Jimmy was silent and green. He very much resembled the gecko who hocks insurance on TV.
The lady I sleep with has a soft spot in her heart for all living things. (Amazingly enough, even me!) (She’s a Buddhist and maybe that’s the reason, but again, who knows?) She discovered long ago, when we lived mauka, that geckos love oranges. You often find one in a squeezed orange half in the garbage. She uses Triple-sec in the kitchen for cooking and noticed geckos hanging around the bottle she keeps on the counter. Since that discovery, she, in her compassion, puts out tiny Japanese dishes of Triple-sec for her creepy little friends. (Did I mention she is Japanese?) I was concerned they might become alcoholics but apparently they are immune. (Who needs a drunken gecko around their apartment?)
We had a series of green geckos come and go in the apartment, only staying a few days at a time. Jimmy however, lived with us for well over a year. For the first three months he lived behind the painting of an Asian scene my daughter bought in Hong Kong. He would venture across the celling almost every night to the overhead light and snack on the few bugs that managed to get into the apartment. (Jimmy became quite fat so there may have been more insects up there that I am willing to admit.) Geckos usually scurry away at movement or even a shadow. It’s a self-preservation thing, so who can blame them? Jimmy however, became so use to us over the months he lost his natural instinct to hide, which may in the end been his undoing. He discovered the cable box on the TV was warm and on winter days would make his way across the cabinet, drop down on the box, and spend hours basking in the warmth. I maintain a small aquarium (10 gal.) and he discovered in time that the vibrator pump not only furnished warmth but a free massage to boot. He spent a lot of his time there. He also on occasion would try to get the fish through the glass. My computer monitor is a 20” x 13” LDC job and Jimmy eventually discovered the warm screen and showed up there to scoff up the occasional bug it attracts in the night. I am working on a novel (who isn’t?) and spend a lot of my evenings at the computer while my Lady watches Japanese TV. (Uninterrupted time!) I was always glad to see Jimmy when he showed up on the screen. Jimmy also found the curser fascinating and spent a lot of time trying to capture it.
One day Jimmy just disappeared. He may have decided it was time to venture out into the wide world and seek his fortune there. After all, he did not do well with the curser or the fish. My worry is that he, due to his loss of fear, may have been consumed by a Red Vented Bulbul. (Google it!) They spend a lot of their time looking for geckos. Anyway, I really miss my friend Jimmy.
Mahalonui loa and pomaika’i.