Saturday, July 08, 2006

A close encounter of the lizard kind

Day: Thursday night
Time: 10:30pm
Mood: Tired and urge to pee.

I make my way to the toilet and switch on the light in the bathroom to give myself a heart attack. There is a f*ing lizard in the f*ing toilet bowl. Yes IN the toilet bowl! I panic and my urge to pee doubles. I consider calling the landlord or friends for help but immediately feel like a total nitwit, as I know how late in the night it is (especially because tomorrow is a work day). I decide to take charge of the situation and shudder with disgust. Visions of the lizard crawling all over house after it jumps out of toilet bowl begin to take shape. After 5 minutes of shuddering and wincing I realize that I could simply flush the toilet. But then again there is a strong possibility (in my twisted imagination) of the lizard jumping out on me. I shudder some more as I speculate whether this lizard has special powers like flying. Finally I realize that I have no choice but to face my nemesis. Without damage control the enemy would run amuck in the house leaving me sleepless…or worse leave me no place to release the building pressure in my abdomen if it camps out in the toilet bowl. Stoopid lizard!
With cold sweaty hands somehow I flush the toilet. Triumph quickly turns into dismay as the damn lizard positions itself between water jets and suctions itself to toilet bowl. Score: Lizard 1, me white as a ghost. My heart beats louder with the first blow of defeat. I look for bleach in the closet and cannot find it. God damnit! I resort to my weapon of mass fumigation … RAID! In a previous encounter with a lizard I had discovered that Raid is not lethal to lizards. All I hoped for was that the smell suffocates the lizard and it passes out.
Armed with Raid, I position the spray as best as I could, keeping my body as further away from the bowl as possible. I did not want to be a landing strip for the lizard in the event it attempted an escape. Lizards are notorious for that. They always plan their escape route on the attacker. Shudder. 3-2-1…attack…I spray enough to kill an army of roaches and then some more and then run like hell out of the bathroom in fear of lizard jumping on me. I tip toe back into bathroom to find the lizard’s tail severed from its body and flailing in toilet bowl water. Peeking a little further I see the lizard trying to swim in the water. I quickly hit the flush and down it goes. I flush the toilet 3 times just in case it uses its suction strategy to hang on in my toilet and come out again. I can’t use toilet for the next 2 hours even with a strong urge to pee as the visions of lizard crawling up my butt dissuade me.
I go online to read about pest control and am willing to burn a hole in my pocket to get all the cracks and holes in house sealed and fumigated. To my dismay I discover lizards are not classified as pests. What kind of a sick world do we live in where creepy crawling lizards invade a person’s house and there is nothing that can be done? 2 hours later I finally reach a point where the urge to pee takes over psychoneurosis and I pee in record time with butt hanging in mid-air. Relieved I decide to call it a night. I inspect bedding for lizards. Lie awake in bed. Envision conversation with landlord.
Me: “Lizards bad. Must fumigate house.”
Landlord: “ They are harmless. Don’t worry it won’t bite.”
Me (animated): “Do you think I don’t know that already? It doesn’t have to bite! It crawls and wriggles and breaks tail off body.”
Landlord looks at me like I am a basket case.I lie awake in bed a long time before I sleep out of exhaustion.

26 comments:

Unknown said...

May the Lizzies soul rest in peace...err pieces! :P

Ardra said...

hi Crys!
had been haunting this place and finally got to see a blog from you...atleast the lizard inspired you t post...long live the lizard- of course let it establish quarters in somebody else's home...
rgds
ardra

Hyde said...

A couple of days ago, I found a dead lizard next the toilet bowl. The next thought was, what if a girl found it...?

:-D

KAD said...

Make sure Maneka Gandhi *never* reads this post. The thought of a lizard swimming in the toilet bowl is scary enough..anyway, all that ends well pees well...ummmm, bad joke....

totti said...

Your mahabharata series was HILARIOUS!!! unbelievable!!

asiddababa said...

will there be no more mahabharata?

oh say it isn't so!

Ekta said...

oooh yukkk!!!
Hate lizards..but for me cockroaches are the yukkiest of them all!!
But ur episode reminds me of the day I was living alone and as one night I was closing the kitchen cupboards I see one Rat perced on the shelf of the cabinet!!!...After that followed a 2 day battle to kill the rat thx to the watchmen!!!
It was a nightmarish experience to say the least!

Abhishek said...

Damn you. I had the lizard planted there to spy on you and see when you were going to start on the Mahabharata series. Dont know what it was thinking when it thought of researching your bowels to figure out your schedule/plans.
Next expect a nosy rat or a pesky cokcroach or a simple fly on your wall... but I'll keep spying.

Kele Panchu said...

Lizards are actually natural pest-controller. They eat other insects free of cost. :)

Anyway, it's good to see that you're back.

Ambuj Saxena said...

You might be happy to know that you are not alone. Mukta is also with you. She wrote this piece about her story. Anyway, nice reading.

Nikhil Kulkarni said...

Good to see u back ... hope studies are laxx now ... Do we hope for Mahabharata to restart??

Lucifer said...

Lizard?

Oh.

Scary.

Kausum said...

good to see you are back on blogosphere. So have you graduated?

Tachyoson said...

welcome back A!

hmm, i dont enjoy lizards , but that was a bad way to go! :)

anwyay my pfilosofhy is that if it eats those evil spiders from mars its cool with me.. i have 4 resident liz's ... and we stay out of each other's way :D

VINOD SHUKLA said...

Hey... nice to know that u r still blogging.. ur mahabharat posts are a bit old.. and was fearing u might have stopped blogging... also u've not enabled emailing on ur profile ..(a bit harsh on the guys who try to reach u ;) ).. btw, u still hv to put up more on the Mahabharat series.. of course, they were awesome, hilarious and informative :P
khair, u sure hv carved a nice for u.. so make the world know abt it .. and in case, ur mood strikes.. wud like to know more abt ya... abt. me.. a google search will suffice .. (1st or 2nd link.. keeps on oscillating)
looking forward to more posts!

DaysasIremember said...

" I pee in record time with butt hanging in mid-air. "
so powerful imagery. i laughed my heart out.

Joy Forever said...

Wow! Nice to see you back. Hope the Mahabharata series will get back on track soon.
Lizards are kinda cute, don't you think? Especially the small ones? They eat the other insects in the house and actually help you. I once took a close up photo of one in my flat. I thought the shot was cool, but my lady friends didn't approve of it.
Now spiders are the things that really freak me out...

Fleiger said...

Good to see you back on blogworld.

Seems this is household problems week, I just read about 2 of my friends fighting a 'roach, now a lizard in your case. "What next?", I shudder...

Cmreddy said...

"2 hours later I finally reach a point where the urge to pee takes over psychoneurosis and I pee in record time with butt hanging in mid-air." New low in you blogging efforts... There was a time when your blogs were enjoyable.

Btw, this gives me an idea to write something from the perspective of the poor lizard whom you murdered. If only lizards could blog..

Cuckoo said...

Hi,

Had I been in your place, I would have behaved in exactly similar manner including "I pee in record time with butt hanging in mid-air". Step by step, word by word. Only difference - I wouldn't have guts to blog it ;). You sure know how to make story out of a small thing errr small lizard. :)

ram said...

Until now i used to enjoy eating lizards, you kinda spoiled my appetite for that by flushing one down the toilet :), this is cruel. Anyway we agree on one thing, killing them.

eZeR. said...

cool site!

Sudipta Chatterjee said...

Hi... I came here on Sunshine's recommendation and thoroughly liked your blog. However, I had such a wonderful laughing fest as I was reading through your rendition of the Mahabharata!! You have a very creative mind... why did you stop the series?? Please keep blogging!

mandeepsg said...

ha ha ha....haven't we all been through this with lizards roaches and spiders.....but this was really funny...

Phenomenal Thinker said...

Nothing new to add, so repeating:

Thou art marvellous in thy comic sense. :-D Epics are superlative, plus they hav SOOO many comments already, so i chose to comment on something less traversed...(not quite tho...:-p)...

btw...

"peeing butt hanging in the mid-air" tht is non nonsense and FUNNY.. cudnt hav been able t put it better myself... the discomfort of peeing in tht position with the filthy creatures who apparently "complete the food chain" ...

truth IS stranger than fiction.

PS: Won't you do anything abt Ramayana? It is beckoning you... plus the "Anti- comedy MORAL posts"... i mean the "Pseudo- vanar sena on guards"... these guys will also hav to spew fire so I think you shud strt...if not for the lovers, at least for the blog enemies... :-)

yours sincerely,
Nascent Crystal Blur fan.

skar said...

ROFL_MAX post!!

p.s: The word verification alphabets I've got read 'glugh' :)