Ma Tati

Introducing Ma Tati. I see Ma Tati nearly every day, sitting on a bench by the roadside, watching the world go by, accepting respectful greetings and enjoying a natter with her friends and neighbors.

Ma is never seen without the head gear, but it by no means reflects her character and has a delightful gummy smile, which she of course was not going to reveal to the world. As you can see, I nearly caught it, but being a respectful youngster, even if I had, I would not have blipped it, rather kept it for my personal collection.

Ma likes to give the impression that she is very prim and proper, but when I sit next to her and snuggle up, it always cracks her up. Just like Elise blipped a few days ago, those distinguished character lines on her face show that she is no stranger to smiling. One of my favorite characters in the neighborhood.

The Bandung story - part 7

First of all, I do remember writing this tale down before, but I could not find it in my 'spare text' folder (I've written a lot of texts that did not get blipped for whatever reason). This could mean that it was blipped, but that search revealed nothing also, so I am confused. If it turns out that the story has been blipped, please accept my apologies.

So, Erik the Viking, Geoff and I set off, armed with only a biscuit tin, to capture a particularly large specimen of the tiger spider that we had located the previous day. We found the arachnid but somehow it looked twice as big today and we were all a bit nervous. Erik was stunned, never having seen anything so large and so evil and expressed his gratitude that he was just a spectator.

Once again, the web was huge, but I had formulated a plan on how the entrapment would work. I started explaining to Geoff about how I would place the tin over the spider, trapping it against the web and then he would place the lid on the tin from the opposite side. It turns out that Geoff was under the impression that he too was an observer and flatly refuse to take an active part in the proceedings. The size of the web made it impossible to be a one man job, so Erik the Viking was bullied in to live upto his nickname and forced to take the lid.

I approached the arachnid which now appeared to be about a foot across, with the tin, wondering if indeed the tin was actually big enough. Geoff was now watching from about 20 yards away and Erik was visibly sweating with eyes like saucers, trying to figure out if the lid could be operated with one hand or if it was a two hand operation, so we backed off and had a couple of dry runs to eliminate any problems.

So back at the web, I skillfully placed the tin over the spider but Erik took a step back. I could feel the vibrations as the spider was scampering around within the confines of the tin. Geoff was leaping about, screaming instructions and Erik's face was horribly contorted in total disgust. I'm starting to panic now because if the lid does not go on the tin, I am left with a very angry spider on my side of the web.



Very softly I told Erik, "put the lid on the tin - put the lid on the tin - PUT THE LID ON THE TIN"! Finally Erik got his shit together and performed the operation flawlessly and the tiger was caged. What a performance, David Attenborough never has to put up with this shit. Still, an experience that none of us will ever forget for the rest of our lives.

Back at the office, the next logistical problem had to be faced, how to get the spider into the enclosure. There was a possibility that the spider could be on the lid, also it may have laid some web and stuck in the tin, so we had a planning meeting to evaluate all the problems and formulate a transfer procedure.

The transfer was a three man job: Erik was chosen to remove the lid, as he already had lid experience. The lid was to be removed only after I had shook up the tin, to make sure that the spider was freely moving and not attached to the lid. After the lid was removed, I would shake the spider into the open box and Geoff would complete the operation by closing the lid of the box.

With an audience of every contractor in the office, we had a countdown as I rattled the spider around, 3 - 2 - 1 - lid off - shake - slam - success, the operation went perfect, which was not the case a few weeks later when we tried the operation again. That time, I did not shake hard enough and the spider stayed in the tin and ran up my arm. People were shouting and screaming, running for the exit, total chaos, but we recovered the situation, unharmed and even the spider survived.

To be continued.

Dave