Some of the more creative commercials are the Farmers Insurance ones. They are running one now about a hamster that escapes from its cage in the father’s car as his son gets out for school. Unfortunately for the father, the hamster climbed up his pants leg and he caused a multi-car crash in the exit line from the school.
This reminds me of an incident with a lizard my fourth grade son was taking to school. As we ease up in the drop off line at the school, I hear my son say “uh-oh.” Now you have to remember this followed earlier instruction not to pull the lizard out of the cage in the car. The uh-oh meant just what you think it meant. So, unfortunately my son had to go into class “sans lizard.” He would be over said tragedy pretty quickly.
Yet, as I drove off, I envisioned happening what the Farmers Insurance hamster did. Or, I pictured the lizard climbing on my ear or head as I drove. As I was riding down a four lane road, I looked down and the renegade lizard was between my seat and the driver side car door.
So, I reached down and grabbed the lizard by my left hand. Picture one hand on the steering wheel and one with a lizard. At the next traffic light, my car was blessedly detained long enough for me to grab the cage and repatriate the lizard to his home.
The moral of the story is to remind your fourth grader multiple times not to pull the lizard or animal from its cage. I was lucky on this occasion, but I could have easily been filing an unusual insurance claim and not with GEICO, who has a gecko lizard for a spokes icon.
musingsofanoldfart 
Love that commercial and your advice to men of all ages is sound….”Don’t pull your lizard out in the car”. I’m having a giggle.
I had a friend who’s 4th grader let a snake loose in her Volvo on the way to school. Broken hearted my god son marched forward on to class….on my girlfriend’s way home the snake came out the front A/C vent, not all the way, just waving his head back in forth. She managed to stay on the road.
She made it home, ran for the house and a ciggie but left all doors open. We don’t know what actually happened to the snake but it never showed its head again and the A/C system didn’t have a bad smell so we believe it repatriated back to the semi-wild back yard from whence it had come.
Shoe box container was burned in the incinerator and all lived happily ever after.
I had a cure for this….don’t have kids. ~~dru~~
Dru, too funny, the overarching theme and the snake story. That snake coming out of the A/C vent would have caused me to run off the road. I have this vision of the movie “Alien,” in the dramatic scene when the alien pops out of the host. Keith
Thanks for the chuckle, my friend! I needed that!
Jill, thanks. Check out Dru’s comment for another chuckle. Keith
Yes, I saw her comment and DID laugh! I especially liked her last line! 😀
Indeed.
What Jill said!
Thanks Hugh. Check out Dru’s comment for more.
Ditto!
Thanks Raye. In addition to Dru’s story, Erika has a cute one as well.
Such small animals can cause such huge problems! Even worse a spider that slowly comes down either right in front of you between your eyes or – as it happened to me lately – on the left side close to my head. I saw it in the corner of my eye… big enough not to be overlooked! I am glad I overcame my phobia and so I slowly opened the window still with my eyes on the street and hoped….. that it flew outside the car and was not thrown on me…. lol!
Yikes, Erika. That would cause a driver to swerve, so credit to you for your cool under pressure.
In the moment I saw it, first thing I thought was: “Now, stay calm and cool – don’t freak out!” It worked… lol! But I am glad it did not happen to my daughter 😱
You sound like one of those cool test pilots.
“Uh-oh” is never good. You do know that when you tell a 4th grader “don’t do such-and-such,” they only hear “do such-and-such,” don’t you?
You are a wise woman. We may sound like the Charley Brown parents. Wah-wah-wah.
Note to Readers: I always enjoyed taking our kids to school, especially during middle school and high school. Snippets of conversation could be had along the journey off a song, DJ remark, or observation of something outside. Just wishing them a great day as they exit the car makes it worthwhile.
Dear Keith and friends,
I remember well the days of driving the children to school. I used to play a game with my son and his friends that if they could give me the correct definition of a word, that they would win $500.00. Fortunately, no one ever got this right.
After one of the days when flooding occurred in Florida, a friendly little critter made my car his home. As the mouse scooted past my foot, I managed to swerve over to the side of the street where I called triple AAA for services.
Ciao, Gronda
Gronda, did the mouse get the vocabulary word? You must have asked tough words. If I saw a mouse in the car, I would worry about the pants leg thing in the commercial. Maybe Dru’s snake would have helped on this one. Thanks for sharing, Keith
Dear Keith,
One of the words that the boys couldn’t figure out was, flummoxed.LOL
CIAO, GRONDA
A very good word to describe how I feel about even more things today.