But two nights before we left, I was on the phone again, asking front desk if the vouchers had arrived and they still had not. We learned later that they were in the package department at the Dolphin. So later, while we were on our way to Clearwater Beach, someone finally transfers me to the package room at the Dolphin, where they do indeed have our mail from AAA. And I got them to agree to deliver them to the front desk at the Swan which is joined to the dolphin by a bridge, because we weren't going to get back before the package room would close and we needed the vouchers by the next day or else. But that night when I was still tracking the vouchers, I just hung up from the front desk when this gecko skittered from one shoulder to the other in front of me and down my arm and behind the night stand. I screamed. My daughter told my son-in-law next door that she thought it was some drunk in the hall --and her husband said, "No, I think that was your mother!" So she came in and brought two cups and chased the gecko along the wall behind the love seat in our room but couldn't get it. So I called the front desk and then housekeeping or security or somebody --who sent up a guy with a spray can.
I looked at it and said, "What are you going to do with THAT!?" He said in a foreign accent, "This is what we use to get the roaches and ants." I said, "Well, we don't want to be fumigated with poisen --and it's not a bug. It's a lizard." He seemed puzzled. I said, "You know, green, a lizard. About 6 inches long in total." He said, " A lizard? Green?" Yes, a lizard.
So he takes out his pen light and shines around and next thing I know, the exterminator man is on our bed --which was turned down by the cleaning staff --and pawing over our pillows and says, yes, he sees it. And Jon says, "You'll need a vacuum sweeper. Just let him get it tomorrow, Barb."
"Nothing doing. I'm not letting this guy slither over me in the night! Been there, done that!"
So the exterminator leaves and Jon leaves on some errand after grumbling about having the roach man on our bedding. I pull up the spread, take off the pillows. And Enrico comes back with a shop vac and a long dirty looking hose to drag over our bed. But he gets one of our towels and tells me to call up housekeeping if I need more. He says, "You still have 3 towels." And he spreads it on the bed and puts the shop vac on it after I explained that my husband was a little creeped out about the idea of the equipment being on the bed.
So Enrico puts his left hand on the hose --and his right hand on the switch and tries to turn the switch on at the same time he's trying to make contact with the gecko --so it races back and forth --Enrico spots it every time and goes back and forth, back and forth --and he's getting frustrated, I can tell--and embarrassed at his lack of success. I've told him a couple of times that I think he should turn on the sweeper first --and then zap the gecko. He says, No, that will scare him --the feel of the air. I said, No, Enrico, just try it. It's a vacuum --it doesn't blow air on it but sucks him in! As you get close enough, he won't have a chance against the suction. And at this point, I could see the gecko --by the electic outlets behind me where I was sitting on the love seat. So I said, do it --turn it on first --try it! and so, looking skeptical, the exterminator follows my directions and sure enough! Zaps the critter.
And that's the end of the gecko story. And sadly the end of the gecko, I assume.
Enrico said this was a first for him. How did I know!?
"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible
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