The Odd Couple

There are not many people who can share communal space in peace, let alone the tight quarters of a trailer. Luckily for Gecko and I, we have proven over the years that our cohabitation is a pretty harmonious affair. And while we have many similarities in how we go about things, morning remains a time when Gecko and I couldn’t be more different.

I usually become conscious around seven-thirty or eight and then choose to lay in bed with my eyes closed and my mind daydreaming until the clock approaches a more respectable hour – let’s say around nine-ish. This is my magical “I’m not getting involved yet” time and I cherish it almost as much as the cup of coffee that I know I will very slowly make when I finally do get out of bed.

By contrast, Gecko is up by six or seven and immediately starts planning out his entire day, week, month, and year onto lists, supported by graphs, diagrams and tech support from T-Mobile. As soon as his eyes open it’s as if his mind just heard the starting gun and Seabiscuit is out of the gates running seven furlongs in a swath of southern heat.
Two mornings ago, as I was lying there, imaginatively spinning myself into first place at a salsa competition in perhaps New York or Miami, Gecko came barreling through the three-foot hallway full of energy:
“Well, I hope your awake. If not, too bad for you because its time to organize the office!”
“But it’s five Gecko!”
“Close those eyes! Here come the lights!” he chirped as papers, magazines and boxes of stuff were whipped up into a tornado that would have had Dorothy frantically clicking her heels.
Then yesterday, just as I was riding across country, on an open road at sunset, in a 1969 baby blue Camaro with the handsomest man in the world sitting next to me, I heard my frequency start to go static as Channel Gecko was coming in strong.
“ AT&T sucks! You guys are so much better. O.K, Now. I want to upload my contact list from my iphone to my T-mobile phone but it’s saying I have to go through Outlook Express and create some file. What’s that? I need to make a what file? O.K. Right – a CSV file. Andriana? Are you awake? Do you know how to make a CSV file?”
“I don’t…wha?....a who?...file…wha?” I replied, looking at him as though someone just spent the night socking me in the head with coal pillows.

It’s interesting to me the ingredients that make a household successful, or in our case, a trailer successful. Differences are so many times spun into a negative, when really, what could be more fun than two people, sharing the same space, one having mapped out their entire future while the other has only mapped out their path to the coffeemaker - all before nine in the morning.