Arizona = little Nicaragua

The adventures continue here in this great land of Arizona!

Today while making dinner I heard my roommate scream "There's a gecko in our house!" I ran over to see it, but it had ran behind some blow up mattresses. Realizing that I had been prepared for this moment (seeing as though we had many lizards as pets in our house growing up and sometimes those lizards got our of their cage and it was up to us to catch them before mom found out! :) I started the hunt for our four legged friend.

I opened the door because surly the lizard would see it as its best escape route and run for the door. (I think that it slipped my mind that their brains are the size of a pea!) I moved the mattresses and nothing happened. I then looked behind the mirror that was leaning up against the wall and guess what I found?! (Those of you who said "The gecko!" would get credit only because you said the LOGICAL answer and the answer that I was expecting as well!) But in reality what I found was a scorpion!!! I jumped back a little, but then my missionary days all came flooding back to me. I had killed many of these creatures in my day- many that were half the size of my head! Okay- that is maybe an overstatement! I told my roommate that I would take care of it and headed off to get the broom. All professional scorpion killers know that this is your best weapon! :)

It did cross my mind that I should let the gecko eat the scorpion, but at the time I didn't know where the gecko was and I didn't want to risk the scorpion running into any other room! Plus, I didn't want to witness him getting eaten! So...I got into place ready for the kill. I felt like I was back in Nicaragua again as I raised the broom to deliver the blow! My heart began pounding with nervousness as I counted to 3. "1...2...3.." and nothing happened. I couldn't do it! So I counted again "1...2...3" and down the broom went. To be honest I don't know if it was dead before I hit it, but it definitely didn't move afterwards.

I scooped it up and sent it outside! I am still getting used to this blogging thing and I forgot to put something next to it to show the size! I could fib a little and say that imagine my hand next to it and the scorpion would be twice the size, but that wouldn't be true. Really and truly it was about the size of your index finger... ish...

Really I think he was just a baby...a baby the size of your finger!!!

One animal taken care of, now we had to find where our scurrying little friend went. I unrolled the blow up mattress and out it ran. I had my first glimpse and it was tiny and so cute!!! Again, that comes from having them as pets when I was little! I really would have loved to have kept him. Instantly, I began calling for him and Willie and I became best of friends...even though I doubt he caught on to that! I think that when Sarah said gecko I was thinking of the ugly lizards that climb the walls here and Nicaragua and eat bugs. This poor guy was so little and even though he tried, he couldn't climb for the life of him- but that didn't keep him from trying. I even had a pep talk with him and told him the exact route to getting to the front door, but the silly thing didn't listen! It ran behind the cabinet instead. Using the broom, I tried to scare him out by running it under the cabinet. He ran away towards the door a few times, but always came back to the darkness of the cabinet. However, all of a sudden he was gone! I had no idea where he went. I was SO confused! I had no idea how he could have vanished. For about 5 minutes I searched in all the little places he could have scampered to...and nothing happened. I was still holding the broom explaining my conundrum to Sarah when I looked at the bristles of the broom and there he was! I had somehow gotten him stuck when I was running the broom under the cabinets. Fearing the worst that I had squished my knew found friend, I took a closer look and I could see his stomach moving in and out! YEAH! He was alive and breathing! I guess lizards have 9 lives too! So, I ran and grabbed my camera to document the adventure. I could almost hear him say "would you hurry...I can barely breathe!" So after his photo shoot, I very carefully took him outside to untangle him. I used my child life skills to explain to him step by step how we would get him out. I could see fear in his eyes :) I moved each bristle one by one and I was able to free both of his legs and then his hands. As he climbed out, I realized just how beautiful he was. He kind of had a black and white design on his back and then as he ran away we noticed that his tail was bright blue! He was gorgeous! (We thought the blue was a rubber band in the broom! He knew it was in actuality him! )

Here is poor Willie when he was in the broom! Its like he was holding on for dear life! As you can see, he looks like he was squished! I'm so glad he survived. You can see his blue tail at the bottom of the broom as well.

I know this is blurry, but you can see how blue his tail is in this one!

I also looked it up on Google and apparently Willie is called a Skinks. I got this picture off of Google...and it may be a picture of our Willie out there in the wild...or it may be his twin...but nonetheless it looks mostly like him. Willie was skinnier and I think cuter...but I may be a little bias!

I had to hold back the tears as our little Willie ran off to the brush. I'm sure he had a good story to tell the fam about a ferocious black animal that tried to eat him, but how he miraculously escaped just when he thought it was all over!

He was a good little 10 minute pet! Thanks Willie for coming to play...glad I didn't kill you! :)