Hotter than a sumo wrestler's ballocks...

OR,

I am but a leaf on the river of life...

Somewhere betwixt mopping the sweat off my prone form and swatting away wee gator-jawed flying beasties from my tender bits I hear a robust duet. Ah, the ire inducing calls to commerce of our melodious, if brazen, neighbourhood praedial larcenists.

First a wailing falsetto:
"Mamay-la, co-co-nuts!" (Read: "People, coconuts!")

Followed by a sturdy basso:
"Kasav, fawin, toloma!" (Read: "Cassava, cassava meal, cassava porridge!")

Say this much for Lucian thieves they're a ballsy lot. These two enterprising crooks don't own a single fruit tree or the like, far less for an un-square foot of land upon which to plant one. But then, what have they to fear, other than the odd cutlassing or bullet wound? Incarceration, you say? Coconut once bragged; we call him "Coconut" as I'd warrant not even his own mother remembers his given name; that every Christmas he took vacation at Her Majesty's leisure because the eating was good at the local lock-up.

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Which is why I found myself one fetid morn; having been awoken at 2:34am by the unmistakable sound of someone tumbling off a ladder, and having 4 hours later discovered said brand new extendable ersatz steel ladder chillin' against a plantain tree, sans barely matured bunch of plantains; tethered it to said tree and left it for bait; having the following ridiculous exchange with a nappy haired brother surveying my pregnant guava tree:

"Hullo, there", I called out sweetly, fresh from the shower and clad only in a towel and righteous indigation, eyeing the back end of a MAN, an un-wanted MAN through the bathroom window.

Three things happened concurrently. Upon reflection, they could have occurred consecutively; but what with the speed of execution, myopia and the heightened emotion of the moment, I can't be sure. My quarry executed a two foot vertical leap; while looking to first his left then right, but of course due to anatomical constraints not backwards, and uttered an understandable but conversationally useless, "Wha'?"

"I said, "hullo"" the sweetness, now entirely gone.

"Uh?" He was by now turned the right way around.

"Was there perhaps some reason you were lurking about my backyard?"

"Uh..." He was obviously thinking, or rather trying to think, somewhat lethargically, and coming up empty.

"What are you doing in my backyard?"

"Nuting..." he said, but given my deepening scowl, he quickly reconsided and amended, "My ladder." This last was uttered with a mystifying note of triumph.

"Your ladder?" I began to chant internally, "Ohmmmm, I am but a leaf on the river of life, ohmmmm..."

"My ladder", he repeated with growing confidence, his right hand rattling my hostage for emphasis.

"Is it now?" My interior monologue continued, "The water buoys me, soothes me and washes me clean of all irrit..."

"Yeah. Ah come for my ladder," he interrupted forcefully, left fist upon hip and now wholly recovered from his earlier discomfiture.

"Which is in my backyard, because?" A three octave jump had occurred and the river that is my life was now roiling with rocks ahead.

"Uh..."

Since he seemed to be having difficulty with this one I thought perhaps I needed to repeat the question. "I asked you... Which is..." I went silent, words lodged stubbornly midway up my oesophagus. My mouth worked once, twice, and I emitted a strangled huff. It was at this point both patience and feigned civility both exited along with the bloody soothing water - stage left, and I yelled, "Man, you get the *bleep* off my *bleep* land!"

"Mé madam-la ladder mwen?" he beseeched in an aggrieved tone. (Read: "But my lady, my ladder?")

"Kisa!?" Admittedly, I was at this point shrieking, waving a telephone in my one free hand and tracking him window by window as he edged his way reluctantly around to the front of the house. We by now had an interested but feckless audience.

"But madam-la, your what?! Ti sallopwi. *bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* Tiwé chou douvan mwen avan mwen qwiyé polis-la pou fan-li pou-ou!" (Read: "What!? But madam, your what?! You *bleep*. *bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* Remove your "bleep* from in front of me, before I call the police to *bleep* your *bleep* for you!")

Ever seen a grown man scuttle? Highly entertaining. Of course he would be back.


(On to Part 2)

posted by dorna! @ 12:04 am