¿Quién es más macho?

Two days ago, Libby and I went camping behind the barrier dunes on the beach at St. Augustine. Naturally, we went for long walks on the beach. Like most people, we love being barefoot on the wet white sand. Late April is a very good time for that.  The hours of daylight are long.  The water temperature is 70 degrees.  Afternoons bring a fresh and cool onshore breeze. Perfect.

After The beach walk, I retired to my hammock to read my book. The hammock was slung between two Shady live oak trees. I looked up from my book. There on the tree truck in front of me were two geckos. They seemed to be competing to be the gecko highest up on the tree trunk.

Aha, I thought! I know that game. It is called ¿Quién es más macho?. That is Spanish meaning who is most manly. But the game is hardly limited to Hispanic men. It is a game played by all high-level creatures. Mammals do it. Birds do it. Bees do it. Even Toastmasters play Macho.  Both males and females play the game. It personifies the entire history of the life on this planet. I visualize T-Rex versus Stegosaurus playing ¿Quién es más macho?. I am sure that if the little green men came on their flying saucers to explore Earth, and they went back to their home planet to report their findings, the title of the report would have been ¿Quién es más macho? I could be wrong.  Another theory is that the title of the report could have been They Taste Like Chicken.

 The larger gecko I named Big G. He has a crimson pouch beneath his chin that he could inflate to display his prowess. Little G was smaller. I'm not sure of Little G's sex. But little G had the advantage of Speed and Agility.

It Started With Big G on top. Then little G did an end run behind Big G's back and wound up on the on top. That forced Big G to respond. He ran around Lil G and pushed Lil G back down the tree.

Then I became aware of a third competitor in this game. It was a tiny red ant, that I called Red. Red was so small that I never would have noticed him except for the right color.

Red seem to wander randomly around the tree.  lalalalala. But after a while, I saw that Reds’ rambling wasn't random after all. With every back lala and forth lala Red managed to crawl over two gecko tails. And every time he did, the gecko gave a jolt as if he was bitten on the tail.

Around they went. Big G would pause for his dominance display. He inflated his red pouch, and bobbed his head up and down by doing four-legged push-ups. He was magnificent and I'm sure intimidating to a gecko.

The three played this game. Move/counter move/bite.   Thrust/counter thrust/bite bite. ¿Quién es más macho? ¿Quién es más macho? ¿Quién es más macho? Wwho would win the mas macho title?

The next part of the story I tell with my head hung in shame. I would never be deliberately derelict in my duty as your narrator of the story. I didn't sleep. But I did close my eyes. I swear it was no more than two or three seconds. But alas, when I open my eyes again, all three of them were gone. Now I'll never know. Now you'll never know. ¿Quién es más macho? Big G, little G, or Red.

I have a suggestion for the officers of this club. We could do our own version of ¿Quién es más macho? at the end of each meeting. Rather than a vote for best speech, I propose to completely open and undefined meaning of how Macho is defined in this context.  I would vote for whoever did something, or said something, or simply smiled at the camera to make me most glad that I came to this meeting. Madame toastmaster --- ¿Quién es más macho?

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