Meet Susan

This seems a rather belated introduction since in a few more blog entries, I might very well be writing a farewell to her a la Dorothy.

Susan came to our home via Santa Claus. Thankfully, Santa Claus saw the wisdom in sending a gecko rather than Vaughn's original request--a penguin or turtle. A friend suggested a stuffed penguin, and a visit to the Downtown bookstore a few months ago had me cursing my infrequency at getting out more because they had life-sized stuffed penguins (although I'm pretty sure my friend was referring to a taxidermy one).

Anyway, after some investigation, Santa, in his wisdom, decided that geckos, in the grand scheme of things, were relatively low maintenance (at least, that's what the pet store staff said) in comparison to turtles, and Santa, the big softy that he is, decided, "What the heck! I don't have to take care of it. This is a one-day-a-year gig. What do I care?" and left a clever little note saying that geckos were just turtles without a shell. Fat bastard.

Anyway, I figured it was a relatively easy way to make a little boy extremely happy on Christmas Day, even if the thing only lived a month. Unfortunately, I grew attached, and I did what I always do and started investing in the little reptile.

In the last month or so, I've noticed her becoming less active and looking kind of scrawny, but I read up in the little Gecko Care and Maintenance book Santa had left, and she wasn't showing any signs of obvious illness. I mean, when is lizard listlessness just a lizard being a lizard and when is it a sign of illness? However, the listlessness had reached such proportions that she barely had the energy to move around and just lied around with her limbs splayed out at odd angles for extended periods of time. Call me hypervigilent, but that just didn't seem right.

After much researching and calling around, I find out there is only ONE reptile expert in this area, and he's clear across town. I call to make an appointment and only get an answering machine with such a complex and convoluted schedule of open hours that it made my head ache: "On Tuesdays, we are open from 10 to 6, except for lunch, which we take from 11 to 12. Wednesdays and Mondays, we are open from 8 to 4, except for lunch, which we take from 10-11:15. On Thursdays, we are open from 7:25 to 12:10, except for a tea break from 9:15 to 10:18, with a 10 minute break we call "surprise!" during which time we do answer the phone, but it's random, kind of like the lottery. On Fridays, your guess is as good as ours. On weekends, are you kidding? Closed all traditional and nontraditional holidays."

At this point, I decide to go to the place from whence Susan came (the pet store), figuring maybe that could give me an idea as to whether this constitutes an emergency and also if there is someone other than Dr. Occasionally that we could go to.

Good news: It's not an emergency. Susan is just slowly languishing, with their best guess being that she is suffering from a calcium deficiency. "Do you dust your crickets?" "Uh, no," but you guys failed to mention that was necessary. This "easy to care for" quote is becoming less and less applicable. They gave me a few ideas as to what kind of measures I could take and then suggested I take her to someone if she doesn't show signs of improvement in the next few days.

Bad news: And if she doesn't recover in the next few days? The only doctor in this greater metropolitan area that specializes in reptiles is Dr. Occasionally.

I think I'm going to go into reptilian medicine. That seems to be an unfulfilled niche. I could become the Reptile Whisperer!