Today when I opened my cupboard to get out a glass for some water, a Four-Clawed Gecko fell from the heavens.  Not an extremely rare occurrence, as I have two or three that have taken up residence in my kitchen.  I welcome them since they eat the bugs that bite me, and they come out only at night for the most part (presumably to watch over the hut while Maxine and I sleep).  However if you’ve ever had any living thing fall from the sky in front of you, you know it elicits a good startle.

When I was in high school, my brother and I were playing some Nintendo 64 in our basement when the heavens sent us a gift in the form of a small field mouse.  In the ceiling of our basement we had those puffy white panels.  Some of them had been cut to allow for pipes to come down (and back up, which makes me think why it had to come all the way down in the first place).  The genius who cut the panels decided to cut square holes (even though the pipes were round, like every pipe ever) so the corners of the cutout were a perfect size for critters to fall through.  This tiny mouse also gave us a good startle (and ruined our game of Goldeneye 007).

Who knows how many more times in my life some living creature will pay me an unexpected visit? Not me.  I do know that no matter how often it happens, it’s one of those events that I can depend on happening, but in such a random and infrequent fashion that I will never get used to it.  I will never not be startled, or jump, or squeal like a pre-slaughter pig when a gecko falls out of my cupboard.  Try as I might.

So where is the threshold?  When does something happen enough times or frequently enough that your reaction is compromised?  I’m not sure there is a global variable for when we dull to these things, but I do know that it happens.  The first few times your heart is broken, the first few family/close-friend deaths, and other less significant events that are unexpected can take a toll on you.  But somewhere between that first heart break and that twentieth death, something happens.  A line is crossed.  Is it the 1000th gecko?  Is it the 100th field mouse? Is it the 7th gecko if the previous six were on the last Saturday of the month?  When does jump and squeal fail to kick-in?

More importantly, is there anything that you would never get used to, no matter how often it happened to you?