They Do Move in Herds

We lived in Malaysia for the past two years. In Malaysia, there were geckos. Many, many geckos. They were speedy little greenish lizards that like to sit out on rocks, or on walls in the evenings, and eat bugs. If you come near them, they either a) freeze and don’t move a muscle, b) scurry away, or c) leap straight off the wall or ceiling in complete terror, flip and flop around on the floor, and scurry away. They only do option C if you really surprise them. It happened to me about four times in two years. One landed on my shoulder. I shrieked like a girl scout.

Those were the days. I long for the days of option C.

In Bangkok, they have MUTANT ALBINO geckos that have GENETICALLY ADAPTED TO LIVING ON PEOPLE’S PAINTED WALLS. Just think about that for a second. THEY EVOLVED TO MATCH OUR PAINT SCHEME. These things are pale whitish yellow, they’re plump, wrinkly and impudent like old Finnish men in a sauna, and they are basically like having wriggling human fingers clustered hungrily around every light fixture. They’re smart, too. These translucent monstrosities stick much closer to the light than their dull-witted jungle-dwelling Malaysian cousins. In a few years they’ll have evolved heat shields which allow them to cling directly to the light bulbs. At this rate, there’s very little else for me to do but urge you to enjoy what little time you have left before the geckos become sentient and put us to work in their vast fluorescent bug zapping mines. I give us about five years.