Brian, Buddy, a Baby Gecko and my Scratched Cornea
(Buddy, a little tuckered after the hunt)
Yep, you read that right! This post is the story of my guy Brian, my cat, Buddy, an unnamed baby gecko, and my scratched cornea ... and how they're all interconnected :)
Two days ago I was outside hanging some laundry on our clothesline (don't you just love the smell of clothes drying outside??!:), when I heard Brian saying, "Buddy! Buddy! No! No! Don't ...leave that alone!!".
Buddy then was running around my feet, somewhat frantically, or as frantically as a fat cat can run, Brian was shooing him away and then reaching down to pick up the littlest baby gecko that we've seen here; it was perhaps a centimeter long and a few millimeters wide, but there was something terribly wrong with it. If you know cats at all, you know that they don't like a quick kill, but rather, a slow, painful, playing before the actual kill. Brian managed to get the gecko away from Buddy, but not before the poor little thing had lost its tail and a good size piece of its back leg.
Remember now, I'm still hanging laundry; the clothesline at eye level, ready to go with pointy clothespins hanging there too. And, this is all happening at my feet. You can see where I'm going with this, right?
So, Brian picked up the little thing (the gecko, not fat Buddy), and set it on a small piece of wood beside me. He tried to encourage it to move, come on lil' guy, you can do it, and pushed it forward with his finger, but to no avail. The baby just kind of sat there, unmoving, but still very much alive. I finally found my voice and said, awww the poor guy. You need to put it out of its misery. Now let me just say, that I've never known Brian to put anything out of its' misery; he's the guy who stops on a freeway to help an injured bird, saves bugs from the swimming pool, has spoken of saving the baby bird we now have in a nest here because that mother doesn't seem to feed him enough, so when I said to put the baby gecko out of its misery, I never thought he'd actually do it!
Yep. As quickly as the words left my mouth, he just as quickly squished it on that piece of wood. It shocked me so much, and honestly grossed me out too (I can still see the lil' guys' guts), that I swiftly spun my head away from the mayhem and believe it or not, impaled my eyeball on one of the clothespins sticking on the line.
I kid you not, but regardless, I'm going to give you a second to stop laughing or wincing or both...
By the night before last, my eye was on fire and after a terrible night's sleep, Brian was kind enough to go to our local Pharmacy early in the morning and pick me up some antibiotic eye drops for a scratched cornea. This unfortunately is not my first scratched cornea rodeo by the way; dried contact lenses and a fun day of water skiing are not a match made in heaven, I can assure you! :)
The pharmacist said very little screen time and even less time in the sun without sunglasses and a hat, so yesterday, I did nothing but sit in the dark, do a little bit of steemit and sleep. Today everywhere I went I felt like I was about to rob the joint, being all incognito with my hat pulled down and darkest sunglasses on, but nonetheless, by tomorrow, things should be back to normal.
Whatever that is anymore :)
That's a lot of mayhem in one short period of time. And now you know what Brian will do if you tell him, so there's that.
I don't think I've ever seen a cat sprawl to fall asleep before. Most I've seen like to curl up in a ball. Maybe he's too fat for that? :)
At any rate, sorry to here about your eye. I wish you a very quick recovery. And maybe the next gecko just needs to be relocated for safety sake? I don't know. We don't have lizards. Spiders aren't so hard of a choice to squish.
Brian doesn't normally do what I ask that quickly haha
He's a weird, fat cat Glen, so I don't know. Brian's had plenty of cats in his lifetime and said he's never seen one do this though. Perhaps, like Brian and I, he's just completely relaxed in Mexico :)
My eye is much better too, thanks. It's a bit like a small piece of sand in there, but not all of the time. Nothing to complain about though :) First it was stray dogs, then cats, and now geckos? geez. And yes, I'll squish a spider any day of the week!
I'm glad to hear about your eye, sans the grit. I thought I'd cut myself just below the eye on the edge of a protruding box flap—It's a big box, and I was bending down to put contents from it on the floor. When I looked at myself in the mirror, I couldn't see anything, so it was just the unpleasantness of cardboard scraping along my face, I guess.
Now, that I've had my eye incident, too, we need to look for another since these events always travel in threes, right? Celebrity deaths and accidental eye (or near eye) experiences. That's a thing, right? :)
Happy it ended well and I hope you'll be back to normal in no time. At least we can laugh at it now. I can imagine your body movements as your head hit that line. :)
Btw, what is that orange triangle like thing at the top of the picture? Could be a tooth from one of the dreadful Steem Monsters. ;)
My eye is pretty much back to normal Daniel, so now I can really laugh at it all :)
haha the orange "tooth" is part of a big cushion on the wooden lounge chair on the patio. I'm not sure how it makes a soft spot for Buddy to rest his head, but it apparently doesn't bother him much!
Thank you so much for stopping by :)
Good to hear about your eye. 👍
Cats and a big orange monster-like tooth is the best combination for a great post. 😃
Ouch !!! Forced meditation for you ! That gecko started a chain of events in motion that ended with your cornea. In another timeline you might have lost your eye if you sneezed at the same time...
haha @edprivat, now that's the way to look at things! In the blink of an eye (no pun intended:), it could have been a lot different!
I'm down for the meditation too :)
@lynncoyle1,
Lynn, you're a good writer.
And, you know, that whole one-eyed thing, that's marketable. Yes, yes, I know, the whole pirate thing gets overdone every Halloween. Still, an author with an eye-patch ... that's memorable because it's something you don't often see (no pun intended). You are defined by that which makes you different. How are you with a cutlass and a bottle of rum?
Quill
I believe I'm part gypsy, so you tell me :)
hahaha the one-eyed author; I hear she's very insightful :)
Thank you for the compliment Quill; I really appreciate that! I'm a closet poet, but a public prose proficianado ... apparently a lover of alliteration as well.
@lynnecoyle1,
Well it's time you fired up your Shakespeare! Van Gogh was the one-eared painter, you'll be the one-eyed poet. Unique. Memorable. Marketable. "Arrgh matey!"
Quill
Oh gosh! What a day! We had geckos all over the place where lived in Texas and it was always a battle to save them from the dog. Hope your eye heals quickly.
Ren
hahaha of course! The dog would love them too :)
My eye is doing much better already, thank you Ren!
Lynn! I'm sorry about your cornea. That's never a fun situation. Good thing it's going to heal up so quickly. And I'm sorry about your little gecko. Poor little guy never saw it coming. It must have not known Buddy was a cat because he was lying there so sleepishly. Hope things improve soon!
hahaha I skimmed the responses here yesterday with one eye and missed that! That's a whole lot of irony going on I'd say!
I know you love all animals too, so I'm glad you weren't here to witness it also ... we maybe could have had cornea-squared going on :)
It's much better today too, thank you :)
Heh. :D
Oh, I don't love all animals. Not a fan of mosquitoes. Don't care for roosters. And the platypus still confuses me. ;) I don't like seeing animals hurt or getting killed though.
I'm glad things are "looking" up. Hee hee hee.
That story is so sad and so funny at the same time...
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It really is! I couldn't mourn the gecko for too long because I felt more sorry for myself :) but now it all seems very funny ... in a very dark way :)
The killer bees. Get it B, B, and B Gecko? haha Hope your eye is doing better. I'm liking Buddy and his ability to relax. He is looking downright comfy lying on a hard brick floor and piece of wood. Thats not easy to pull off :)
hahaha @steven-patrick, the killer bees, the triple bee-gees, B-cubed ... I'm gonna stop there ;)
My eye is doing much better, thank you! And yes Buddy; he's taking this whole retire and relax in Mexico to a whole new level :) haha I didn't realize his "pillow" too!
You can put me down for wincing @lynncoyle1. When you said
that brought up too a picture for me to do anything but wince. 😊
I'm glad to hear it's going to hear so quickly though. 💙
I pegged you for a 'wincer' @gillianpearce :) Thank you for not laughing at my misfortune! It is healing very nicely, thank you; it occasionally feels as though there's a bit of sand in my eye, but other than that, it's back to normal.
I do look at the clothesline differently now though.
Buddy must be part chihuahua, our pups roll on their backs like that when its bed time, like saying rub my belly then carry me up to bed pose.
hahaha @bashadow, Brian and I always say that he seems more dog than cat actually! He greets me at the door when I come home, comes when he's called (what cat does that??!), and apparently sleeps like a chihuahua :)
Your dogs sound like they know how to live! Is your profile pic one of them?