I think it’s tokay mating season right now. Tokay geckos (Gekko gekko, Latin name) are the second largest gecko species in the world. They are nocturnal and range from India and Nepal to across Southeast Asia. All of the ones that I’ve seen have been blue with reddish spots all over their body, and all of them have been a minimum of six inches long, but mostly longer. They have a very distinct mating call, which starts of with short, rapid-fire croaks and then goes into “TOK-ay, TOK-ay, TOK-ay.” I’ve been hearing this call so much lately, which is what lead me to believe it is mating season.
Now, I’m usually quite happy to co-habitat with other creatures. But, these guys are kind of frightening and I don’t like them. They bite, and when they do, they don’t let go. My friend tells me that you have to dunk them in water to get them to release. No thank you. Plus their calls are seeping into my dreams. So when they have attempted to move into my house, I have donned my battle gear and attempted to chase them out.
It began a couple of weeks ago, when I watched one scuttle along the wall and hide behind my armoir. I was just about to leave for my friend’s house for a long weekend, so I pretended I didn’t see it and hoped it would leave while I was gone. When I came back, I chose not to look and see if it was still there, and I left for the Thai Youth Theatre Festival a couple of days later. I was gone for nearly a week related to my duties for that and when I returned, I had forgotten all about the tokay that was possibly living behind my dresser.
First Encounters
But a week later, which was last week, the first battle took place. It was late at night, after I had returned from the Ya Mo Festival in Bua Yai, when I heard it. That distinctive call, only amplified and much louder than I had ever heard it, echoing through my house.
It was coming from behind my dresser. I was not happy. I walked to the back of my house, opened the back door and then went to my dresser. Hoping to scare the gecko out and towards the open door, I shook the dresser and pushed it back against the wall. Nothing happened. I knew it was back there; I had just heard it. So, I went and grabbed my broom and pulled the dresser away from the wall a bit, and sure enough there was the little bugger, clinging to the wall about six feet off the ground.
I stared at it, and it stared at me. I started to try to poke at it with the broom handle, but it would not budge. Once it scurried a little further down the wall and into the shadow of the dresser. I took stock of the weapons available to me in my house and found a long, metal hook, meant to pull down my front doors when they fly up too high for me to reach, but also a perfect tokay antagonizer. It’s longer and more menacing than the broom handle. I took that back to the battlefield and actually poked the gecko with it, towards the back wall, hoping it would get the hint to go out the door. It arched its back, opened its mouth and tried to strike at my trusty weapon before scuttling out into the light and onto the back wall.
“Excellent!” I thought to myself, “Now, I just need to herd it towards the door and outside, and that will be the end of that.” But the gecko had other plans. After faking left toward the door, it turned itself back around and darted back behind the dresser! “Dammit,” I thought. After checking its location behind the dresser, I decided to try and use my hula hoop to push it out, that way it couldn’t go up and around or down and below my weapon. But when I returned with my new weapon of choice, the gecko was no where to be seen. After checking nearly every nook and cranny, I decided that it had taken it’s opportunity to show itself out and decided this battle ended in a kind of mutual understanding.
The Tokays Should Pay Rent
Over the next couple of days, I heard the call of the tokay, all of them coming from outside of my house and I was glad. Until one day, a call came from near my front door, from behind a small piece of metal that holds the rolling doors to the wall, about nine feet off the ground. I looked and sure enough, there was the tokay. So, I got my metal hook and poked it from behind, sending it up and over my wall into my neighbor’s apartment. I felt a little bad, but at least it wasn’t in my house. Win for me.
I asked my co-teacher about tokays the next day. She told me she had 12 living in her house near the school. “Twelve!?” I said in disbelief. “Isn’t that noisy?” “So noisy!” she said. “There used to be eight eggs, but they have all hatched now. You just have to tell the tokay that this is a nice place to live and be nice to it.” Oh no. I was not going to let a tokay lay eggs in my house. My house is not a good place for a tokay to live. I told her, “If the tokay wants to live in my house, he is going to have to pay rent or help clean and do chores.”
Stand-Off
Things had been quiet in my house for some time. But then, Sunday night, I forgot my charger for my iPod downstairs in the dark. So I took my flashlight and went to go get it. When I got to the bottom of the stairs, there on the wall in the middle of the beam cast by my flashlight was the giant silhouette of a tokay. Right in the middle of the wall. No. No way.
I turned on the lights and grabbed my hook. It scurried behind my dresser, which I pulled out and poked it out of there. It scurried over behind my refrigerator. I poked it out from there. It went behind my countertop pantry and I poked at it behind there. At one point, I lost it. I thought it scurried into my trash, and I was afraid to go near it. I poked at it for a bit, before tying up the bag and taking it out.
Then I saw its head, peering from behind the refrigerator once again. I positioned myself so that I could poke it back, again toward the dresser and eventually the door. After trying to bit the metal pole, it hurriedly made its way back to behind the dresser. I poked it out of there and it went to the back wall.
“Yes! You have the right idea, gecko,” I thought. But no. It did not. It walked right over the door and into my bathroom. I turned on the light in the bathroom and poked my head in and saw it in the corner, its little belly heaving. I said, “Fine. I’m done for tonight. I’m tired. But you know your way out and I expect you to find it.” In the morning the tokay was not in the bathroom, or in any of the hiding spots it had tried the night before. I’m declaring victory in that battle, but I’m sure the war is not over.