Did you know geckos like sugar? I’ve come to realize this in the past few years as the bright green Madagascar geckos boldly lurk on my kitchen counter and brazenly lap up sweet crumbs we leave behind. I’ve seen them licking juice droplets or honey dripped on the counter.

I think they’re cute so I leave them alone. It’s fortunate I’m not afraid of them because we have dozens in the house. I expect them to eat the bugs I don’t like: cockroaches and mosquitoes.

Last week, Olivia left an M&M on the counter. We’re hit and miss with our collective energy and interest in keeping the place tidy, and this candy sat on the counter for a few days.

I noticed a piece of the shell seemed worn off, but I thought no further about it. However, after the end of the second day, I realized more of the shell was missing. That’s when it dawned on me that the lizards were licking it off.

I pointed it out to the family. As an experiment, we left the M&M sitting there another day, and sure enough, after the third day, the entire shell was gone, leaving just a chocolate ball.

We all thought it was very funny, until I realized that I’ve eaten similar looking M&Ms over the last seven years since we’ve had a child who is vertical and toothy. I know there have been times when I’ve seen a candy looking like that, thought it was a factory defect, and just popped it in my mouth.

I don’t want you to think I live in a filth pit, but yeah, there is a real haphazardness to my post-child thought process. It’s lovely and horrible at the same time to have so much of one’s brain cells diverted to the management of someone else’s life.

More often than not it’s a ditzy fog – the kind of scatteredness that makes me mishear “Cubs won (the World Series)” as “Clinton won”, and then question if I totally spaced on Election Day. (“Wait. Today was Election Day? How did I miss that?”)

It’s in that same fog that I’ve munched on strange looking candy, only to put it together years later that lizards got to it first. I’m grossed out by the thought, but then again, I’m not dying of salmonella outbreak so it can’t be that bad. I hope.

Author(s) on this Post Diane Ako

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