Testimony Time

I love blogging! Really, truly! I love that it reveals so much about you, yet so little. You see, I feel as though you all can tell when I have blogged under duress. Duress being those moments when you have nothing to say but still feel a bit obligated to blog.....I let myself down when this happens so I try for it not to happen.

I hope the above gibberish explains my bursts of absences here and there. It doesn't? Be nice to me!

To the crux of the matter. Brethren, the Lord is good!!!!

You see, Ma Petrillo is somewhat a perfectionist. She also has a keen sense of smell, sight and hearing…..let’s just say a keen sense of everything, ok?  This combination essentially means that no rodent can be gallivanting the house up and down. I remember some years ago, we were all dressed and ready to go to school. Ma Petrillo caught sight of a RAT…one small miserly-looking rat in the family living room. That was all it took. Nobody could leave the house until the rat was killed!  She upturned chairs, cabinet…. all the furniture just to get this rat. Sometimes, “smelling” them is all it takes to turn her into Sherlock Holmes. She absolutely loathes them.

When I was leaving Nigeria, one of the things I thought I was leaving in Nigeria was rats. Boy was I wrong! Whoever has been to the NYC Subways can attest to this; that the human population in NYC is probably half of its rat population. Lordy! Those rats run the place. HEY! as a consolation, there are also no lizards! I guess the weather is not conducive enough for them and their sun-bathing/basking. This reminds me of the lizard I had to kill the other day.

  Don't look at me like that.

 It was a defiant lizard, totally fearless, it had to go! Because like Sisi Yemmie says, na from clap e dey enter dance. I had to act then.

Anyway, next to my house is a compound of 4 flats. One of the inhabitants had a wedding ceremony some weekends ago and hasn’t cleaned up the compound and its environs properly from some of the mess they made. It has drawn a lot of unwanted attention. For some days now after the event, I would open our kitchen door in the morning, say 6.00am, in order to go and clean Ma Petrillo’s car (yup, extra yards on my wife material) and would see this hamster of a rat dashing away from the kitchen balcony. HA!!! Not once, not twice! Sometimes, we would even see it strolling into the compound at night from outside. Mum was very bothered. We even christened the rat as “the tenant” since it felt like it truly belonged there, otherwise, why would it stroll into the compound at night, and stroll out in the AM like I do?!

I know by now, you are expecting to read next about a snake...since I seem to be living in a zoo. The snake-days are gone. The present threats are scorpions.

Ok, I was telling a story, right?

Mum got some pellet-like things and set it up for the Tenant outside. The tenant ate it all up…to the very last pellet.

Character Flaw: Greed!

The following morning, I still saw the Tenant dashing away from the compound like it was late for work. That was 2 mornings ago.

There is this guava tree in the compound. Somehow, I am the only one who manages to find and pluck really big Guavas on it (no pun please). So to defend my title as “The Guava King” (yes, King!), I marched to the guava tree right after I returned from work today.

The smell that assaulted me was not from this world!!!! Lying in the side gutter was a decomposing “the Tenant”.

Another Character Flaw: More greed! Of all the places it could die in, it had to be in our compound? I bet the bugger was planning to move his family in. Anuofia!

Brethren, I could not contain my joy! You guys have no idea how it feels, to be threatened day-in, day-out by a hamstser-looking- rat, a rat in YOUR own house! A rat that isn’t even paying rent! Ha!

But it is over now! The Tenant can bother us no more (unless its relatives want to take up from where it left off *shudders*). 

I don’t know if there is a lesson to be learnt here or if there’s supposed to be any spiritual connotation of victory or the likes. If you find, claim it!

However, I will have to ask Ma Petrillo for the name of the pellets she fed the tenant. I have to know so that I can give the company my personal thanks. They seem to have saved us from being held hostage by a family of hamsters rats.

So, what I am saying now is that I am now an EXTERMINATOR, hire me. I can get rid of cockroaches, rats, spiders, snakes, spiders but I draw the line at lions (say your prayers if that is what is plaguing you).