Monday, August 2, 2010

Being Green


This little guy rode to church with me Sunday morning! (Okay, well, not exactly THIS specific little guy from the commercials, but one that was just as cute, to be sure.)

Okay, more like THIS little guy! (You have to look reeeeeeeally closely.)

For real!

In fact, he preached a whole sermon to me before I ever got into the building! Yup. For real. (And never once tried to sell me an insurance policy, though I'm pretty sure I'd a'bought one from him.)

Truth is I've had a hard time making it to the church house lately -- what with my having the D-word and all -- but I'd decided Saturday night that I really needed to make it there yesterday if I could at all manage it. (I'm a BIG woman, and I sit on the second pew from the front, so for that reason alone -- okay, and I'm kinda loud -- people notice when I'm not there for more than a couple of weekends.)

St. Michael had already left so that he could get to the church house early enough to get his ushering duties on, so imagine my surprise when I discovered on my way out of the neighborhood in the Queen Machine that I wasn't making the drive alone. No! The tiniest, cutest little Gecko Guy was riding on the hood of the Queen Machine with me! Not out in the front, like one of those bare-breasted wooden ladies would be on an old ship, but further back, closer to the windshield, and somewhat more centered on the hood, kinda like a . . . well, a surfer, I guess.

To be honest I felt kinda bad for him 'cause I kept thinking that any minute he'd . . . well, wipe out like a surfer, but there really wasn't any appropriate place for me to pull over, pluck him off the hood, and then set him free (at least not without one of us running the risk of getting squished by the other non-surfing-gecko vehicles breezing by us).

Good luck, and hang ten, little buddy!

Thirty miles an hour. Forty miles an hour. Then fifty on Space Center Boulevard. And still, this little guy hung on like a champ. Now, granted, he did start out a bright, dazzling chartreuse gecko-green, and by the aforementioned fifty-mile-an-hour mark, he was turning a sort of strange sickly brown color, but, still, despite appearances, he was there, holding on for all he was worth! (Fortunately, by the time I turned off Space Center onto Middlebrook Drive, traffic was lighter because by now I couldn't take my eyes off this little dude -- I was cheering him on, and the road markings were strictly peripheral.)

As I slowed and turned into the church parking lot, he actually appeared to breathe a sigh of relief, and for the first time since I'd noticed him, his head actually dropped down onto his little front hand-thingies (heck, I don't know what they're called, but you know what I mean). He seemed to have finally collapsed in exhaustion from the effort to get where we were. (And I know we both breathed a huge sigh of relief.) And yet, despite the odds, he was still there. Yes, a little worse for wear, but there, nonetheless.

Through no reason that he really understood, my little gecko guy's world had suddenly taken off and seemingly (to him, anyway) sped out of control -- certainly out of his control at least. And he had done the only thing he knew to do: He had held on. Held on until it all slowed back down.

He didn't try to stop the car. (Totally beyond his paygrade.)

He didn't try to jump off. (Not an option when jumping off meant unceremoniously going splat.)

He didn't even try to run and hide. (The space where the wiper blades rest was nearby, but the wrong move would've surely jeopardized his balance and sent him flying.)

Nope. He just planted himself right where he was and clung to the one thing he knew to be solid. Yup. He simply did the only thing he could: He hung on. And waited for the craziness to stop.

Love it.

He was gone when I came out of church. I kinda missed him, but I was sure he'd made his way through the rows of parked cars to the more gecko-friendly grassy areas of the surrounding neighborhood. And I bet he's looking like his old self again. A bright, dazzling chartreuse gecko-green.

I think I'm finally 'bout there myself.

Love it.

Grins,
Pamm


2 comments:

  1. love it! About the "D" word that does something for me is when the latest storm of it has passed..there's an ahh-hahh! moment of, "Wow, I got thru that and onwards and upwards again."

    Maybe you should have the Keep Calm and Sing picture that I'm starting to see around bloggies. xox!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm happy for you!
    You keep hanging on.
    (I just love reading your posts. Clear and funny is always a homerun!)

    ReplyDelete