The "OhGod" of Days

    The above comes form watching Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, and his OhGod of hangovers, whom I just love. Makes me laugh every time. 

    Yesterday went just fine, until about five-thirty pm, when TN Mobile cut out internet due to non-payment. This is of course bullshit, as I have never missed a payment, and actually just spent eight months fighting with them about allocations. This happens every month. I pay, they don't capture it, refuse to acknowledge receipt of the confirmation, ignore emails, and then cut us off. 

    But I mean really, at five-thirty on a Friday, when no one in the accounts department is at work?? I expect they do it because of those clients that really don't pay - then you have to suffer a whole weekend without Facebook or Netflix. But me? I pay. 

    I lost my shit. To add to this, Pio also lost his, as we have many internet lines running to our mail server, but they were down due to Telecom having technical problems and all our service providers here using the same towers, and the last one was cut for no good reason. We can NEVER have no internet in our business. 

    From there, the evening steadily got worse - even though Pio tracked down some random manager at TN and made them connect us again. 

    Trying to feed Cady, as she is so fussy, is always a nightmare. Then, Coda and Kita hang over her waiting for her to walk away, so they can steal her food. They glare into the back of her head so hard that I'm sure she feels it and lands up running for her life. So after she walked away for the third time, I picked up her bowl (Coda is grossly overweight and is not allowed to thieve extra food) and as I put it next to me on the couch, I somehow caught the side of it somewhere and it all landed facedown on my couch. All sticky and wet ... I almost threw the bowl across the room. 

    We decided to get dinner on. Pio wanted potato bake. I precooked the potatoes, and on assembling it all, thought the cream smelled funny. I'm freaky about this sort of thing, but Pio said it was fine. I then asked him to turn the oven on, as our long fire lighter thingy had died and we have to use a lighter, which means I always burn myself. He ignored me. I tried to light the stove myself, and managed to squash my finger in something, which led to another outbreak of vloeking and skeling. 

    Then, we tried to go sit outside, but by now it was almost dark, so the evening could not be appreciated. To add to it, the wind was pumping so hard I could only hear whistling in my ears. I tried to water the lawn, and discovered that Jessie and chewed the sprinkler and Wilbard had disappeared the fitting on the end to spray normally, so I got a cramp in my hand trying to water evenly - in the dark. I also had to dodge dog poo and Jessie's odd collection of everything she chews on a daily basis. 

    Thereafter, I attempted to sit at the braai and talk normally. Pio was a few glasses of wine ahead of me, and I just found him annoying. He tried to cheer me up by kissing and cuddling me, to which I found that his stubble literally rubbed my face raw, so I told him to f off. The wind was still howling, blowing my hair in my face and whipping words away, as well as forcing my cigarette smoke back down my throat every time I tried to exhale. 

    I popped inside to check on my potato bake, which was still raw, as I had put the stove way too low, apparently. I returned outside, to have Jessie run past me with a cigarette coal attached to her head, still glowing red in the dark. Admittedly, it's a great way to keep an eye on her, but WTF had Pio done? I charged after her in terror, thinking it was going to burn its way into the back of her skull. She ran away in terror, and I had to stop, and call her for cuddles - in her fear at being chased by a terrified me, she was terrified. I eventually got hold of her and got the coal off. That led to yet another bout of vloeking and skelling at Pio for accidentally almost setting my dog on fire. 

    By that point, I said to Pio, I just want to eat and get into bed and be done. He tried to finish as quickly as possible, and we went inside. The potato bake was raw, and I told him I would wait. He then tried to hand feed me, which got him told to f off again. He then flatly ignored me and ate - raw potato bake and all. I tried - it was all gross. I gave up, and decided I would have leftovers from the night before and my pork sausages for breakfast instead. 

    He had zealously put the salad away, in an effort to help, while I was trying to still eat, and when I took it out the fridge, I have no idea what happened, but I dropped it - a very short fall, mind you. It hit the edge of the fridge and shattered. There was glass and coleslaw in the fridge, down the front of the fridge, and all over the floor. I also somehow managed to cut myself. 

    The dogs decided this was a great treat, and I had to scream at them to f off, as there were tiny shards of glass in everything. We eventually got that cleaned up, with the dogs looking at me like I had beaten them. No apologies fixed this. 

    I eventually dished up my second dinner, and sulking, went and sat in bed with it, and turned the TV on. Because of the internet failure, nothing would work or connect. I tried to read on my phone, and it died on me as well. I almost threw that across the room, but luckily the thought of how I would explain that to the insurance, stopped me. 

    Pio, probably feeling quite mean towards me with the amount of f off's that had followed him that evening, left me to my dilemma, while he calmly brushed his teeth and did a million other things before even trying to fix the TV. 

    My dinner wasn't quite what I had in mind, and I landed up giving the last half of it to the dogs. I lay in bed, watching the TV that finally worked ... only to have Pio moan about everything I put on. He got told to f off for the umpteenth time. He then tried to cuddle. I refused. He tried again, trying to be nice and affectionate and hold my hand. He very nearly got slapped. 

     Eventually, I found something for him to watch, only to have him fall asleep not even five minutes in. I could have smothered him with his pillow at that point. 

The Haarskeerder

    We have loads of these every summer, as soon as the first rains have come, and normally Pio deals with them, as I shrivel up and have a heart attack in the corner. But ... he was away. I was tucked up in bed watching TV, Cady in bed beside me and Kita on her bed at the foot.

    I suddenly saw movement out the corner of my eye, and realised a bloody haarskeerder was slowly climbing the wall towards the window. They don't choose to climb, as from what I've seen, they can only climb using their front two icky legs, dragging their big fat bodies behind them. 

    My heart stopped. I was alone, with no man to protect me.

   Bear in mind, I tackle four meter pythons and warthogs with no second though. But these things make me go cold. 

    I didn't see a slop anywhere in sight, so bolted off my bed to find one. On return, he fell off the wall and was heading for the corner by Pio's bedside table. I tried to hit him with the slop, but even on this close encounter, I screamed like a polecat and jumped up and down on the bed with revulsion and a pounding heart.

    These things are incredibly fast. They move like lightning on speed. 

    He disappeared under the bed. I stood there for a moment, contemplating. There would be no sleep for me tonight, unless he was dead. My bed is against the wall, he can climb, and I also have one of those bloody mattress covers that I am sure he could latch onto with his evil, creepy, sticky feet. My pepper spray was in Swakop. I'd probably kill myself with a ricochet if I brought the shotgun out. 

    Now, I know Doom doesn't kill these buggers, but I'm sure if I finished the can on him, it would do the trick enough to be able to plant him with a plakkie. 

    I headed for the kitchen. 

    On return, armed with the can of Doom, I picked up the torch and inspected my bedroom with wide eyes. He had to be here somewhere. Which meant I had to look under the bed. The bedroom is really badly lit, hence the torch. 

    I crouched down, using the torch to look under the bed, Doom at the ready, to see if I could spot him hiding in a corner. 

    It was then I felt something on my arm. 

    I'm sure I had a heart attack. 

    The bastard was stuck to my arm, obviously having run up me. I was stupidly wearing long pyjama pants and a t-shirt, giving him ample grip - until he hit my arm. 

    I shrieked like an eight-year-old girl and started jumping around like a gymnast on speed. The doom went flying, hit the floor, and the plastic top broke into pieces. The torch went in the other direction. I slapped him frantically, suffering a nip in the process, but got him off me. I was still screaming. 

    The bugger came at me again, those legs working like a steam train. I continued screaming and ran into the bathroom. He followed, running for my feet. I did something that looked like a cross between a rain dance and an epileptic fit, and launched myself into the bath. 

    He scuttled around the edges of the bath, while I stood there, heart pounding, with nothing to hit him with. He disappeared back into the bedroom. I remained in the bath, contemplating my next move. There was none, really. My Doom can was in pieces and I had no other weapons. 

    I gingerly exited the bath and approached my bedroom. Our bath is particularly tiny - I don't really fit in it (when I met the woman that built the house, I realised why. She's a midget.) so that wasn't an option to sleep in, although I did consider it. 

     I phoned Pio, shrieking down the phone at him. He laughed at me. "They can't bite," he said. Bull. They bloody do. 

    I retrieved the can of Doom and the pieces of its top, and managed to squish one part of the top back on enough to make it spray in a general direction of where I wanted to. I sprayed everything. 

    He didn't reappear. The dogs were looking at me like I was insane.

    I mean, our house is dark. Four years later and I still haven't fixed the lights properly. This was my idea of hell. 

    I tried lying on the bed, my only vantage point to view the entire room from on high, pushing my feet against the wall to try and move it into the middle of the room. It didn't budge. Its rather large. That meant I had to put my feet on the ground and move the thing away from the wall, hopefully giving this spawn of the devil less accessibility. 

    I had to put my feet back on the ground to move it. I then decided to change from long pyjama bottoms to shorts, which I did. But then, I'd left them lying on the side of the bath. I spent another ten minutes shaking everything out, and once sure that there was nothing in them, I put them on. I then inspected myself in the mirror, wandering if he was on me again - but this was difficult as I was eyeing the floor to see if he would come at me again. 

    Bed in the middle of the room, I sat there, looking around me for another half an hour. Jessie, my killer dog, had decided that outside was best this evening, and wouldn't come inside. Cady and Kita had watched my antics with amusement, and had done nothing when the bloody thing practically ran over them. 

    He never reappeared. Which means he's still in the house. I slept with the light on, and my broken Doom, a torch, and two plakkies next to me. I freaked every time a bug flew into me, looking for light. And now, in the rather hot light of day, I'm still too scared to sit with my feet on the ground or move to clean in case he reappears ...