The Case of the Cat in the Night

My birthday was a little bit eventful, although I didn’t tell you about it then.  Three things happened.

The first thing was cockroach-related.  I hate roaches.  I mean, I hate roaches.  No, I mean I REALLY hate them.  Hate like, I killed one with a frying pan once – that level of hatred.  I’m also girly about killing cockroaches, so I scream and dance around and yell at them to, “Stop, you little bugger!” while I’m chasing them down to the kill them.  I’m not gonna lie – if there’s a man around, I expect him to kill any roach that dares to present itself, although I still scream and dance around.  Once they’re dead, I laugh my head off in relief that they’re gone and at my own stupidity while I was in extermination mode.  That’s what happened late the night before my birthday.

My male colleague B had moved out after part 2 of the Imigrasi po-po debacle to spend the night at a motel, so A and I were in the house alone when the cockroach made its appearance in the bathroom, where I happened to be at the time.  I ran into the living room screaming for A, who found me the Baygon, then I ran back to the bathroom and emptied half the contents of the can on that critter while I screamed the house down and hopped from foot to foot.  A was busting a gut laughing at me the whole time.  Once I was sure the roach was good and poisoned, I took off my slipper and whacked him good…thwap!  End of you, you nasty little bugger…yuck!

Pause…I know that cockroaches are God’s creatures too but I cannot appreciate them.  I’m sorry, I just can’t.  Not now, not ever…Resume.

The drama wasn’t over.  In my suitcase, I had the last 2 slices of a Jamaican Christmas (fruit) cake that my mom had baked for me.  I was saving those 2 slices for my birthday. For those who don’t know, because of the rum content, those cakes can live for several months without being refrigerated.  Well, about an hour after the murder of the first roach, I opened my suitcase to grab something and lo and behold…another roach.  Aaaaarrgh!!  Apparently the cake (in a covered foil tin and wrapped in 2 plastic bags, for goodness sake!) had attracted it.

Screamed for A…ran to the living room…no clue what to do next.  It was the dead of night so hauling the suitcase outside to get rid of the roach so it wouldn’t get turned loose in the house was a no-no.  We agreed on a plan.  Zip up the suitcase, leave it in the living room and deal with it in the morning.  Great, problem solved.  I did that.

The whole cockroach debacle, plus the coffee I had drunk in the afternoon, had me up for a while and I finally got into bed at about 12:30 am; it was now officially my birthday.  Five minutes later, I felt my bed shaking…earthquake!  Yup, my birthday started with an earthquake.  It was a small one and was over in a few seconds so I didn’t worry about it.  I thanked God for a good day, said my usual covering prayers and fell asleep soon after.

Two hours later, I was awoken by a huge bang from somewhere inside the house.  It sounded like maybe it had come from one of the rooms near mine.  I thought perhaps it was more of the ceiling falling down in the computer room and was about to roll over and go back to sleep when another series of loud bangs came from the room right next to mine.  It sounded like someone was trying to break in through the bathroom.  Oh, my heart got to pounding immediately!  Interestingly, I was nervous but I wasn’t worried because I had prayed my usual covering prayers before I went to sleep 2 hours before and I knew the Holy Spirit was standing guard over me so whatever was about to go down, I knew it might be stressful but I’d be OK.

I lay still and listened but there was silence for a while.  Then more bangs and things falling and for sure something was happening in the bathroom.  I sent a Whatsapp message to A, “A…you up?  There’s something in the house.”  No answer.  Her room is 3 rooms away so I figured she was sleeping through the racket.  It looked like it was just the Holy Spirit and me.  What to do?

I decided to go to my room door and see what I could see.  Heart pounding, I quietly got out of bed, crept to my door and peeked through the crack.  I was just in time to see a random, unknown cat saunter out of the bathroom to the living room.

Are you kidding me right now??  A cat??  How did this cat even get in the house??

I wondered if I was missing something.  I quietly pushed my door closed and lay down again.  More banging from the bathroom and things falling.  I wondered how a cat could be making so much noise and wondered if some creative burglar had trained his cat to get into houses and unlock doors for him, and he was the 1 in there making all that noise.  (It was late, I was sleepy…ridiculous thoughts come to you at times like that.)  Eventually, the stupid cat stopped doing whatever it was doing in the bathroom and all was quiet.  I sent another Whatsapp to  A, “I think it’s a stupid cat (insert rolling eyes emoticon here),” covered myself in prayer again, and went right back to sleep.

The next morning, the fun wasn’t over.  The stupid cat had wrecked the bathroom; apparently, it had scared itself with its own reflection in the bathroom mirror and had gone a little crazy because of that.  A was up before me and cleaned up the mess in there so I didn’t actually see it.

I also still had to deal with the suitcase cockroach.  Once I was properly up, I hauled the suitcase outside and that stupid roach was just waiting for me.  I beat it to death with my slipper before it knew what was happening, screaming and hopping from foot to foot the whole time.  End of the roach chapter…eeeeewwww!!  I also chucked out the rest of my cake…stupid roach.

Cockroaches, earthquakes and burglar cats…oh, my!  Well, at least we got a good (slightly hysterical) laugh out of it all and a really interesting start to my birthday.