Hiding Place

Bugs and I don't get along. I mean, I hate them with a vengeance. It might be in the genes. My mum freaks whenever she sees a worm anywhere and she won't go near the sink if a lil squiggly worm falls out from amongst the throngs of veg that she buys home. My brother and I take sadistic pleasure in pouring hot water over ants to kill (KILL! KILLLLL!!!) them all. Ecological and efficient--yay me. Another sadistic simple pleasure in life during the lantern festival is to drip hot wax on big red ants, thereby encasing them in a wax tomb. Muahahaha.

A particularly memorable incident with bugs has to do with my brother. There was once he aired his brown pseudo-leather shoes in the balcony for months on end and didn't bother to bring it in. One fine day, as my mum was going about her chores in the kitchen, she saw a wasp hovering around my brother's shoes, so she shooed it away and didn't think too much about it. Until she saw the wasp revisit the shoe... this time with a load. Upon closer inspection, the load... was... a... WORM. *SCREAMS!* Of course she wasn't going to do anything to the shoe since there may be a worm involved, so she conveniently waited til dinner time before she announced the little piece of news to my brother. How appetizing.

Because he likes that pair of shoes, he needs to redeem it somehow from the wasp who have taken over ownership of that shoe, having made it into its place of residence. I volunteered to be his lil assistant because it was morbidly fascinating. First there was the inspection: yup, our worst fears are confirmed. The wasp built a tidy little mud nest in his shoe, about the size of a small coaster. We will have to scrape it out somehow. After some discussion, we split the job as such: he holds the shoe above the toilet bowl, I scrape out the contents.

He: Okay I'm holding it firmly in place.
Me: Okay I'll start scraping. It's very hard, so hold it tightly ah.
He: Okay sure.
Me: *scraaaape scraaaaape*

*a slight dent in the nest*

Me: Eh it's super hard lah.
He: Try again.
Me: *scraaaape*
He: *bangs shoe against side of toilet bowl*

Shoe: *a mini avalanche of dirt and... several gray fat ugly worms*
He: OH *BEEEPBEEPBEEEP*
Me: ARRGHHHHHH!!! OH YUCK YUCK YUCK! OH *BEEEEEEP*
He: WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR MAN! FLUSH THE TOILET! *FLUSH!*
We: *ran out of toilet screaming with shoe in hand*
We: *nauseated*
Me: Shucks that was just a small section of the nest!! GOT MORE INSIDE!
He: I think I will throw this pair of shoes away.

And that was how a pair of shoes fell prey to a wasp. Wasp lesson of the day: Did you know that the *gag* worms were kinda still alive but paralyzed? There were loads of wasp eggs in the... avalanche of dirt. When these eggs hatch into *gag* worms, they will.. eat the paralyzed ones. *GAG*

Speaking of hiding places, who knew that they could hide so well. A must read for all IT folks out there, courtesy of Mr Bing.