Now I know why Thais don’t like geckos in the house.
Mrs Sub recently caught me at a weak moment and bullied me into painting our living room. Forever the coward, I submitted easily. As I took the paintings down off the walls, I kid you not, there must have been a ton of gecko turds. Not surprisingly, Mrs Sub was nowhere to be found. I should have used her absence as opportunity and painted around the pictures, but it was too late; I was already ankle-deep in gecko guano.
Up until this point, I’d kind of liked the cute little lizard. I’ve got a couple of gecko t-shirts and a gecko necklace. I’ll even admit the idea of a gecko tattoo had crossed my mind. This rude insight into their lack of toilet training probably saved me from scarring myself for life.
The good thing about geckos is they like munching on mosquitoes. Mrs Sub, however, doesn’t see this as an asset; why should she? She’s got me to protect her from mossie bites. I’m convinced this was one of the main reasons she married me: farangs always get bitten before Thais. She sleeps like a baby every night while I get blitzed.
After the usual restless night swatting incoming aerial attacks, it was a sleepy start to the day’s decorating but after eight hours of up and down ladders, swinging, trapeze-like to reach the far corners, slipping on carelessly placed rollers and getting absolutely covered in paint, the job was done. I have to confess I felt proud of the achievement. A small crowd of neighbours had even gathered in the front of the house, most of who had probably never seen a farang doing manual labour before; definitely cheaper than the orangutan show at Safari World.
My own dear ‘Queen Victoria’ however, was ‘not amused’ as she had to maneuver her way through the mob to get to her own front door. The first thing she did when she entered her newly painted palace was let out an earth-shaking shriek. The windows shook in frames that she said were “too light”, she slammed the door into a door frame that was “too dark”, and she screamed the ‘touch’ of pink on the walls was more like “a punch in the face”. It was no good – I’d have to do it again. The crowd cheered as it would mean another free show the next day.
Firmly in the doghouse, I retreated, tail between my legs, to the restaurant opposite to lick my wounds. A couple of gentle beers later, however, I realised that every cloud has a silver lining. Our daughter’s dream had finally come true: she was now living on a full-size Barbie set and I’ve had two or three of the neighbours ask me if I would like to paint their houses. I’ve agreed, as long as they clear up their own gecko shit first.
