99 monkeys jumping on the bed... One fell off and bumped to his head (Kronk, The Emperor's New Groove)
I don't get along well with pets, animals in general, I admit that. If you put it as a responsibility issue, well, I guess I'm not a responsible person. But I did deal with some animals in Pinky house, which gave me the tolerance of disgust. Yep, some pretty weird and gross animals were there. If you feel disgusted, don't read anymore.
In my whole life in Blora, I had never seen such cocroach. I mean, I have seen "coro", one kind of cocroach which has dark strips on its body, lives in paper box or corner of board and isn't smelly, but the cocroach I saw in Pinky house was something new. It's brown, bigger than coro and smelly that I could define it into 3 categories: smelly, really smelly and deadly yuck. First, I didn't find it disgusting, but when I knew its habitat and its smell...I tended to smash them with the broom and yell "Get off me! Get out of here!". God, I hated that smell. I could tell that there was cocroach even when it's invisible. Yes, sometimes my sense of smell was beyond average, but not always, fortunately, coz I'd be tortured the whole time if I smelled something bad or something strong, like certain perfume.
Okay, back to the pets...err...pest. Beside cocroach, Pinky house also had hidden kingdom of termites. Dry wood termite and ground termite. Uh huh.
When my dad visited me for the first time and saw the house he asked me whether I was sure living there. It was basically a ruin and could collapse anytime. The wooden structure was very fragile and bad things might happened.
He was right, indeed. Fallen ceiling happened in almost all rooms. You could imagine going home from college and finding a chunk of ceiling hit your bed. You were sleeping there last night, man. The timing was really crucial. What if it fell when you were there? Of course you didn't want to be a sandwich (for the record, no one ever got hurt from any of the incident).
The sawn timber used for the door jamb, window pane or even roof support mostly was coconut sawn wood (Hi, Pak Man. How are you now? He's the expert of house fixing. The owner hired him again and again to straighten up the house). It didn't last long, but it was the practical choise at that time. If the owner wanted to fix it well, it meant he had to destroy the whole house and built it from A. And no budget for that. So basically we lived day by day in danger. It sounds crazy now that we didn't care about it at all back then.
All right, back to the termite. You actually could hear the daily activity of the termite when you listened carefully. I could hear the sizzling sound in my door and my window indicating the termite army was busy chewing the wood. And it's not only in my room but also in the major house. Ground termite was found in the north side of the house where they build the tunnel connecting ground with the wall.
Magical moment happened on every first day of rainy season. We had buzz of flying termites, we call them "laron", all over the house. It was so many that the whole living room was full of them and other rooms showered by them. Literally. We had goosebump every time it took place. Felt like alien conquering the earth and no Tom Cruise to the rescue. This house was a total disaster. I was always worried after the termite carnival there wouldn't be any chance this house was still standing.
But hey, you know what, it was. Miraculous eh?
The third animal, and certainly the ultimate gross ever was "resrespo". I don't know the Indonesian or English version of its name. I think it's a mollusk, or whatever. Um, maybe family of snail, but this one has no shell. First time I saw, I thought it was leech (I always have goosebump thinking of leech - pacet/lintah...wraaaaaaggghhhhh!!!). But I had never seen it sucking blood or stuff, so it wasn't. It was bigger (in average 3 cm length and 1,5 cm wide - maybe its mature size), a slow motion creeper, and of course slimy. It laid eggs, a lot of them, in some kind of gel chain (eww....) under the soil or stone. The eggs were kind of ellips, not round. When you touched the creature it would shrink. It left trail, a shiny slime, if it creeped, so you could track its path. You would see many trails on the wall or maybe your furniture.
This creature liked wet and damp place. Usually under the plants, beneath the grass and top soil, or moist corner. It was pretty hard to get rid of them from the surface coz it had that "gluey thing" which gripped tight to the floor or wall.
One way to kill it softly was by exposuring them to sunlight. It definitely shrank and dried. But if it didn't die yet and you watered it or by any chance it was raining, it would come alive again. Such Frankenstein monster huh?
You know, I found three kind of resrespo (sometimes I wonder about myself. I don't like a thing or a creature, but still pay attention to it and even do a little research about it. Weird). One was total black, second was black and had kind of white longitudinal strip right in the middle and the thirdwas brown.
In Pinky house, it travelled anywhere. To the bathroom until the bedroom. I ever found a little one on my mattress!! "What is this cool, soft thing on my feet", I asked myself one morning. When I checked it out, I scream like hell. How could it come to my mattress? Where had it been? Didn't want to think about it..
....
Enough about the little creatures, now we're talking about real pet, at least for some of Pinky house members.
It's cat. Seemed no problem about it, but guess what, the cat dragged us to hold a special meeting regarding to its existence. It was pretty hard and emotional meeting ( I still remember my promise to be more diligent doing dishes...hahaha.. what a lazy bone. My issue in naming people was a hot topics that created misunderstanding and friction. I didn't realize that coz I never meant to hurt or insult anyone. It was my expression of being close friend. But, I think I have to learn that some people might have different point of view, even about small thing).
Once upon a time, there was a cat that ocassionaly hung out in Pinky house, a brown-white cat which soon called as Tom. Tom and friends, not Jerry, sometimes made noise on the roof. They ran around or fought or had meowing contest. Quite annoying. But since some of us, two that I knew, liked Tom and often fed it, Tom become a frequent visitor and started to enjoy the pampering service.
Then, one day Tom came with the big belly. Tom was pregnant. Yeah, Tom was female. From stray animal to house pet, she lived in the cloud of comfort. My friend, Ervin, prepared a special place for the delivery, in a big box filled with cloth. When the time came, she delivered three kittens. I named them A Long (he had long tail), A Chan (his fur was strip like macan - tiger) and Brownies (his fur mostly brown). From the three kittens, Brownies was the smallest. He got a lot of trouble getting his mom's milk coz his two brothers always pushed him away. It made us giving more attention to him.
Have you ever heard about canibalism in animal? It is true. Almost every night there was a male cat, we believed he was the biological father, tried to attack the kittens. We succeded to drive him away, but one night we missed it. That black cat bit A long and he was really hurt. A Long died on the next day. My friend cried for him like loosing her own child. We burried A Long in the ground on open space under the papaya tree.
A Chan and Brownies grew fast while Tom began her new advanture, having date with her baby killer and left her babies. She's mad or what? (hey, she's a cat, man, what do you expect?). Brownies became bigger and sexier hehehe (he had cute butt and very small tail). But he was so coward. A little sound made him run and a little Jerry made him terrified. Still he was the favorite, thanks to his beautiful look.
The cats began to take over the house, in a matter of fur and poop problem. I started to feel irritated because the fur was everywhere. I found it in the furniture, electronic stuffs, clothes, floor, everywhere. I didn't like that. More over those cats liked to jump and run with their dirty feet, making spots. No way!
The pro and con emerged. I was one of the con. I didn't hate cat, but hey, I didn't like it either. I didn't want to spend my time doing extra cleaning for the things that didn't make me feel comfortable. The cat didn't give me joy like my hobbies, so why should I bother taking care of them? They were even not my pet. Say I was irresponsible, I was. Say I was selfish, fine. If someone had the right to have pet, then I had the right not to have one, right? Right.
The tense grew when we had to move and my friend wanted to take them with us, despite the complaints. The friction made the household situation ackward for everybody. And my sarcasm (I was known as the Devil in the boarding house, the wicked one, the dark side queen - but they got used to me that way and accepted me for me, so they understood) made it even more difficult to tolerate. The peak was the meeting. Everyone said what they had to say, not only about the cat thing, but also about our relationship in daily basis. I knew that moment someone was hurt because of me, the way I spoke, and complained about my laziness (doing dishes...laundy...). Okay. I apologized and reinforced myself to be better. In my own defence, yeah, I was bad, I admit that. My words sometimes were sharp or too deep that new comer would be shocked or hurt, but actually I was just making a balance. In Pinky house there was an angel, KaJu. She's top of the top. Diligent, smart, kind, great chef, great friend, broad-minded, determined, diligent, diligent and diligent. She held the north pole and we needed someone on the south pole, right? To keep things in its orbit. So I was the one. She's the angel, I was the devil. Perfect world.
But, of course that kind of thing wasn't acceptable for all. Sorry about that.
Anyway...
The meeting resulted that we would give Brownies and A Chan to someone else who loved cat. We contacted some friends and it took time to hand over them. Before it happened A Chan escaped from the house. Brownies was taken week after that and the house was free from cat.
So, was it the end of the pets and pest tale?
We've got mice after that...but it's another story.
