Exterminate, resistance is futile and set fire to the rain

Last night I was chirping away on the internet (as you do) when, through the open window my biggest nightmare flew in and landed on my keyboard. Off course the window had to be open. The only things that come through closed windows tend to be bricks with nice messages written in either Russian or Italian. Takes me ages to translate but generally this is – ‘Pay your rent or we will dismember you with chainsaw – slowly’. Mmm – well , like, obviously the translate thingy-ma-jig has a personal problem with me.

No, it wasn’t a job offer shaped into a paper airplane – this was worse. A GIANT grasshopper come locust thingy. My heart nearly stopped as I ran screaming like a girl to urinate before I filled my jocks and socks with fear.

I came back armed with a tea towel. My hands were shaking worse than a drunk waking up still alive but well pickled.

Intuitionally my Police Anti Termite Urinater training took over and using all available cover (not a lot as this is a small flat with not much in it), I hunted the pest down.

I not only dislike these creatures but ever since I read the old testament and the seven plagues or was it ten commandments (I get confused) , I am petrified by them. In Rhodesia, occasionally (thank a deity), one of these GIANT things would rock up into the garden. One. Perhaps two. Have you ever seen a YouTube of millions of the things. I watched a couple and nearly swooned away. How can you live in place that gets invaded by these things? And the noise they make!

Even just one. Some weird clicking sound and when it flies it sounds like a bat out of hell complete with 12 string guitar riff. And..its legs! Full of spikes that would make a Neo-Nazi punk jealous. What in hell for? Big, powerful muscled legs with hundreds of daggers mounted on them. Awful apparition. Aah – I even fainted watching that cartoon Bug’s Life or something.

I could have maybe been a pilot. If so, you know those planes they use that drop shit loads of water onto serious big fires? Yeah, well I would load my plane with the same quality juice that put people on the moon, fly over these , these things - let it rain on them and the set it all on fire. I would have the onboard music system blasting out Adele’s hit ‘Set fire to the rain’, and I would laugh.

Anyway, not being tooo drama queen, the thing I was now hunting resembled more like those that the savages (oops, the indigenous population), would collect and make toasted sandwiches with them.

I recall one night once, back in the good old days when we were a when we (wink at a certain Jewboy), it was on Lomungudi Road. It must have just stopped raining or something because there were zillions of the things flying around a street light. They dropped exhausted to the ground and as I watched in complete horror as two of the majority with no voting rights, collected them up by the thousands into Spar paper bags (No plastic due to bastard British sanctions.), they were laughing with delight. The only comparison would be for me to have been accidently locked into a butcher’s store full of rows of moist biltong with massive rinds of palm thick juicy fat.

I am wandering here, not surprising since I am bit blonde at the moment…

Where was I? Oh, so I am hunting this thing down. Looking very carefully and walking gingerly when – there it was! Perched on top of the television - preening itself. Well, I am not really sure how they preen, but without hesitation I shoved the safety catch of my trusty FN onto automatic and let seriously rip. I was beyond caring that the rounds would go not only go through 22 inches LED TV but also straight into the bedroom of the twat next door (he who thinks he is the guitar man and plays five notes perpetually until he only stops because I have drunk myself senseless) and erm.

Okay. I didn’t have my trusty FN, just a tea towel. I whacked the bastard and – it disappeared. Just like that. I mean, I know cockroaches are fast but a hopper couldn’t leg it that quick? Or?

I looked around a bit. Carefully, I didn’t want the thing to take me by surprise and perhaps land on my lovely new hair do. Can you imagine that! But, it had just, like, whish - into thin air. Talking about thin air, I was gasping by now as if I had just been carried up Mount Everest by a couple of coolies.

I was a little insecure but still managed to sort of have a sleep and this morning…

I awoke not sure what day it was or is, but a quick look in the fridge made me conclude it was the day I need to do a bit of shopping. I fetched my little travel bag (those ones even Ryan Air says they are okay), because it is full of empties. Plastic bottles. Now I am not a born natural recycling freak but the Germans were taught a very clever lesson by the Rhodesians – it is called DEPOSIT.

So, it works like this. The stuff inside the bottle costs 33 cents. (Yes, don’t have palpitations, supermarket super beer is that cheap), but the thing that holds the liquid has a worth of 25 cents. Not just plastic bottles but tins as well! Amazing, unlike Mud Island that is slowly but surely sinking in cans and bottles, here in Deutschland, the place is spotless. Even if a lazy drunken teenager discards vicariously a can or plastic bottle, it will be pounced on by the hordes of illegal Eastern immigrants. It is a perfect win-win scenario. The state doesn’t have to pay for the bums and the bums clean the state up. Man, these Germans are clever.

So, anyway, just as I am clocking the time for the next bus (I gave up with riding the bicycle after I fell off it twice whilst testing half a bottle of Mataxa. Riding these things is all Greek to me), well stop my heart with a 7.62 – the THING is perched on the case!

I ran off screaming like some blonde girl and headed to the toilet before I filled, yeah whatever. I popped my head around the door and it was still there. Carefully, very carefully, I slinked out and using all available cover managed to get hold of the tea towel. And I bloody whacked it.

Erm, you are not going to believe this – it did another Harry Potter. Gone! I didn’t understand and I was now seriously frightened. Pulse was racing, the fridge is almost empty, the bus is gone and that THING has to be somewhere.

And, I saw it. It was on the floor, near the tiny left speaker of my el-cheepo Precious replacement. It seemed a bit damaged. I went in for the kill –

Not once, not twice but so often the cable was ripped out the speaker and went numb just as Leona Lewis was screaming about her bleeding heart. I was heartless but wanted blood.

Exhausted, I watched as, amazingly, it was still not dead as it was trying to drag itself on broken limbs to hide under the thick pile of dust in the corner. (Remind myself to get the vacuum cleaner out before it rusts away.)

I hit it again and again screaming ‘ Die you motherfucker –die’.

It has stopped moving now. Quite a while. Well, in the time I took to tell you this horror story. It isn’t kicking anymore, even when I placed a bucket next to it.

The moral of the story – Never mess with the Last of the Rhodesians.