Tenacity

Hurricane season in Florida hit the pause button long enough for Lady Pinz and me to get to Chicago over the weekend, where we had ample time to hang out with the parents and the extended family, including the two cousins each getting married in the next six months.

But my story this morning concerns our return to rainy South Florida. As I was getting on I-95 to drive back to our new condo late last night, I noticed about a three-inch lizard on my driver's-side side-view mirror. I figured it was going to have some serious survival issues over the next few minutes.

As I sped onto the highway, I was surprised to see the little guy hanging on. Yeah, he was shaking around a lot and fluttering the windshear, but the punk was hanging on at 75 mph.

It's a good 20-mile drive from downtown Miami to our neighborhood, and the lizard held on the entire time. A few times his back feet were flapping in the wind and I figured he was done for (don't actually know it's a he; I respected its privacy) but he managed to hang on.

I tried taking a couple of pictures with my cellphone, but it was dark and I was, y'know, driving, so they didn't really come out.

It wouldn't have suprised me so much on the windshield, where the motion would have kept him plastered. This was on the mirror, where he should've been thrown off. But when I pulled into the parking lot, he was still there, just chilling.

The fact that this comes in the midst of an innocuous (but stupid) Geico ad campaign with their gecko mascot hanging out in the passenger seat of a car is just gravy.

So this morning, we at All Pinzur, All The Time salute you, tenacious lizard dude. Godspeed.