Not An Experiment

I did a little experiment last night.  I cleaned up the garage, put away all chemicals, stowed the lawnmower's gasoline, and then dragged Frankie's Dogloo into the garage.

My thinking was this:  it's getting cold and there will be some really cold freezing nights.  Heating Frankie's cave outside costs a lot more than letting Frankie sleep in the gecko room where it stays in the 70's all day and all night.  However, Frankie can wreck the gecko room, pull shelves down, poop and pee everywhere, bother the box turtles until they are nuts, and, well, become a shelled-terror in a room full of geckos, lights, cords, and costly equipment.

After six years I oughta know.

But what if Frankie just sleeps in the garage which doesn't drop below sixty degrees.  Sounds like a great place for Frankie to sleep.  I'll just put him out side when he wakes up.

It was a successful experiment until 9:00 am this morning. It's no longer an experiment.  It was a exercise in being a sucker.

At 9:00 am I am down stairs looking at a sleep Frankie.   I am proud that letting Frankie sleep in the garage in his Dogloo works great.

Then I become a big idiot.

I look outside.  No sun and the temperatures are in the 50s.  I decide to let Frankie into the gecko room to warm up while I am doing my gecko room chores.

Frankie get's dragged reluctanly out of his Dogloo.  He sits.  He is not gonna move.  So I drag him toward the gecko room door.

"Come on, Frankie, let's warm up in the gecko room,  Come on.  Come on."

Fine, I drag him into the gecko room.  I am incapable of remember I am over 50 years old when it comes to my precious Frankie.

In the gecko room, Frankie sits just inside the door.  Perfect.  He can sit and warm up.

I get the new box of crickets, set it on top of a basket, gather my tweezers, and pull over a garbage can.  I sit on my chair, pull the box of crickets to my knees and proceed to pick out bugs, dead crickets, and cricket poop and dump the crap into the garbage.  It's a 15 minute job.  I do this several times a week.

Yep. Keeping geckos is glamorous. 

While I am tending the crickets Frankie adjusts his sitting arrangement.  Slowly (he is still cool) Frankie forces himself under my legs and gets between me and the crickets.

Awe.  Frankie wants to be near his mom!  Shell rubs for Frankie then back to crickets.

Then Frankie pees.  A sulcata-tortoise-bladder full of pee gushes around my feet and spreads under the garbage and the cricket container.

Really, Frankie?  Did you save up a weeks worth of pee just for me?  Because it looks that way.

Frankie moves away from me and the puddle...um, no, gallons of pee surrounds me.

Frankie walks over to the box turtle container, shoves his head over the side to make his presence known to the "ladies" and pees all over the floor a second time.

Groan

Fetch three large gecko room towels.  Wipe up the pee covering floor.

The box turtles have all retreated to the other side of the enclosure as far away from Frankie as they can possibly get.  No problem.  Frankie moves away from the enclosure, sloshes through his pee, and walks across the area I just cleaned.  As he passes he leaves behind little brown drops of poopy-pee and trails them across the room.

There is no experiment about this.  An experiment suggests new outcomes are possible.  No, no, this is all too familiar.  This is how it goes when Frankie is in the gecko room.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

I am not insane because I bring Frankie into the gecko room.  I am Frankie-whooped.