Furby's Gone Wild

The other day I was walking home, following the trail alongside the cornfield, from the swimming hole. This has become one of my favorite activities here and I probably take this walk at least four times a week.
Usually I keep a lookout for black snakes, which are out in the heat of the day. And there have been times when I have passed a squirrel climbing up a tree or another person walking their dog. Snake, squirrel, dog – this is one reptile and two animals I can clearly identify.
But there are many reptiles and animals in which I cannot identify. As I approached the grassy border from the cornfield to the back of Red Wing Farm, one such species came across my path.
It was probably about twenty-five feet away and it was large enough and brown enough and had claws enough that it stopped me dead still in my tracks. I looked at it, it looked at me and we had a stare down for at least thirty seconds. Once it scampered away into the woods, I quietly walked by and made it back to the trailer in one piece. Gecko was not there.
At a dinner party, I told people what I had seen.
“Was it a possum?” they asked.
“I don’t know. What does a possum look like?”
“How big was it?”
“It was probably three feet long and three feet high.”
“Was it brown or black?”
“Um, brown. I think. Maybe a little black.”
“Did it have rings around its eyes?”

"I don't...oh, I can't remember. I was too scared to look too close."
The questioning was getting intense and everyone had their guess as to what it was that I saw until the computer was pulled out and we started playing the picture game.
“O.K. Did it look like this?”
“No.”
This?”
“No.”
“This?”
“YES! YES! THAT’S IT!”
“Oh Jersey girl, that’s just a Nawth Carolyna Gecko Bear!”