Weekend at Nana K's : Adults Only

Tyra was off blissfully sleeping as only one with a newborn baby does.

Briar was at work, fighting off drunk 50 yr old men with a penchant for dancing topless.

Little K, Teeny K, Nixon (Little N) and Banx (Little B.  Hmmmm.  Might need to rethink that one?) were fast asleep after wearing out Nana K on the train and at the pool and in the lounge and having dinner.

Nana K was leisuring in the lounge with a glass of wine (no autocorrect, I didn't mean "pleasuring") with Maz and Hadleigh (the girls' sister to another mother).  

Three seconds after deciding to go outside and look at the stars, it was decided maybe not to when discovering a cricket sitting on the door frame.

Well, one of us thought it was a praying mantis, until Maz pointed out that praying mantis' "look like this", as she adopted a prayer-cross-bunny-eating pose.

It needs to be noted at this point that crickets are scariest only second and third to spiders and cockroaches.

Well, snakes too, but I've yet to find one of those in my bedroom.

Maz pointed out that Hadleigh wasn't scared of bugs, and so she became by default the nominated Life Saver.

"I'll get it" said Hadleigh.  "But what if when I try to grab it, it jumps out to both of you?"

Slight pause, followed by a little involuntarily incontinence.

"OK.  So, um, we're gonna have to come up with Plan B."

Plan B transpired into Nana K holding a broom with an oven mitt on the end (because we didn't want to HURT it, just evacuate it from the house).  Clearly we couldn't use the bristle end because it could get entangled and we'd have no means to disentangle it other than making Hadleigh use her hands, and then we'd be back where we started.

After a few squeals and a little more involuntary incontinence, the cricket had been escorted out of the house.  To the back porch.

"Where IS it mum?"

"It's on the back lawn, we're fine.  I saw it jump.  It jumped ages away."

"OK.  So we're fine then."

*Walks two steps onto the back porch*

"MUM!  It's HERE!  OMG!" followed by some savage sweeping action  that would put Olympic Curlers to shame.  Several of these later, it was confirmed that the cricket was indeed well relocated to the back lawn.

After five minutes outside talking about all the people on other stars looking down at us saying "I wonder if there are people on that star looking down on us and wondering if there are people on this star" we headed back inside.

Only to discover a cricket on the door frame.

Not physically or psychologically capable of any more trauma, we decided to run for it through the door and hope for the best.  Better out than in, so they say.

After congratulating Hadleigh on her raw courage, and reminding Maz of her cowardice during The Worst-Man-Eating-Spider-In-The-World incident of 2013, we retired to our rooms.

30 seconds later there was a knock on Nana K's door.

"Um, mother, there's a fucking huge spider in our bedroom and you need to get it."

Deja vu.  Did she not just hear what was said?  

Followed by some involuntary incontinence.

Thinking it could not possibly be as huge as the Great Melbourne Spider turned out to be a huge mistake after waltzing cockily into the bedroom where Maz was pointing and crying and Hadleigh was on the top bunk whispering "Im NOT getting this one."  

There on the wall was yet another dinner-plate-sized spider.  Not a huntsman though, so hey.... relax.  However, it was hovering right above Little N and (um... still haven't rethought this?) Little B's heads.

"Is there any fly spray?  Go look for fly spray!"

The same fly spray we looked for somewhat hesitantly with Mr Cricket because he was little and we didn't want to hurt him.  Surprisingly, no fly spray had miraculously appeared.

"What can we do? Oh my GOD what are we going to do?"

"Maz, how attached are you to your children?"

"Yep.  I get you.  We have to burn the house down."

Don't judge us.  If we had time we might be able to carry one kid each and really, Ty should have been awake helping us. 

As Nana K reached for her lighter, someone remembered there was a vacuum cleaner with a long hose.  That someone decided that due to past shortfalls, the job of holding the vacuum cleaner pipe belonged to Nana K.   

There was no liquor cabinet in sight.  Nor was there any protective glasses, a pair of binoculars, or a man's t-shirt.  This was going to be perilous.

After retrieving the vacuum cleaner, taking five minutes to get the head off the end - there was no way this was happening with only the hose - it was time for battle.

As Nana K entered the room brandishing the weapon, Hadleigh burst into song.

"Ghost-BUSTERS!! HAHAHAHAHA!"

*makes mental note to remove Hadleigh from further Nana K weekend invite lists*

Planning and preparation had to go into this attack, there was no just "swoop and suck" involved.  This was no wedding night in Rarotonga.

It had to be ascertained that the spider would actually FIT inside the vacuum head, and not just get knocked down onto innocent sleeping babies.

It was then that Hadleigh pointed to a little furry thing and said "what if that's  a bunch of it's babies?"

"We'll get those fuckers too."

Once the attack had been planned, approved, modified, there was some more involuntary incontinence, then the countdown was on.

"3, 2, 1, go!!" and the vacuum  was turned on.  Despite the shaking, somehow the hose was positioned properly enough to first suck up the Mothership, then the bunch of offspring.

Maz turned the vacuum off.  Sighs of relief all round.

"Wait.  What if we didn't suck long enough, and it's just in the tube, and it crawls back out??"

The vacuum cleaner was carried outside to the back lawn after another bout of involuntary incontinence and declined requests of "Maz!  Look at the vacuum chamber to see if you can see it in there!"

"Phew.  That was crazy!  OMG how many insects ARE there?!  Hahaha maybe we're being paid back for the cricket hahaha!"

After praising Nana K's absolute bravery, it's time to retire to bed again.  Briar needs picking up from work at 3.30am and it's 12.30am already.  Sleep is required.

Upon entering the third bedroom where Little K is sleeping blissfully unaware of the near death episode, Nana K decides it's probably best to do a room-sweep to check for potential murderous insects before retiring.

Out into the hallway where Maz had just entered the toilet.

"OK.  I just did a room-sweep, and I'm all good.  I'm off to...."

"FAAAAAARK!!!  Oh my god!" following which Maz lunges out through the toilet door with her pants around her ankles.

"Oh my god I am literally holding my pee in - there's a FUCKING HUGE COCKROACH!!!"

It was believed she must be taking the piss, literally, until she said "I am peeing in the shower.  I can't hold it NOW, and I'm NOT going back in THERE!"

Meanwhile Hadleigh was laughing in the bedroom.  Don't laugh, oh Little H....

"I don't think you realise how impressive my body is??  I did a little bit of wee, I saw the cockroach, and I was like 'NOPE.  Not today' "

I pondered this little feat of nature for a moment from a lady that's given birth twice.

"Maz?  We could just shut the door, and wait for it to leave?  You know, like on it's own?"

"Oh yeah.  Cos it will be like, 'oh, I scared them.  I'll just leave out of this window that I came in through.'  NO MOTHER!  It will crawl through that tiny crack in the bottom and come GET US!"

The next suggestion was that it was left there for Ty to discover on her next bi-hourly visit to the bathroom and leave her to deal with it, but it became apparent that Nana K was the only one in favour of that option.

"Hadleigh, are you scared of cockroaches??!"

"Nope."

"Good.  Do we have a job for YOU!"

Quite wisely, Hadleigh decided she needed a game-plan.  You don't just go into toilets and grab cockroaches.  She need to know what she was dealing with, and how she was going to deal with it.

"Are you SURE you're OK doing this?  You're really not scared?"

"Nope, I'm fine."

Three seconds later she walks into the toilet, sees the perpetrator, her face widens with shock and her words were along the lines of "oh holy heck, that is HUGE!" before she ran back out into the hallway.

This does not bode well.  

After being ordered back in there, the broom came out again.  Which was used by Hadleigh to swipe the Antichrist onto the floor, where she was expected by all to bend down, pick it up - with some toilet paper, we're not heartless - and flush it down the toilet.

What actually happened was: Hadleigh swiped the Antichrist to the floor, everyone screamed and experienced some more involuntary incontinence, Hadleigh bent down to pick it up, and it ran away.

Let it be pointed out that this toilet is not that huge.  Despite that, it still took ten minutes of screaming and crying to finally locate the beast, when it scuttled up the wall.  After several very impressive-but-failed attempts at capturing it , it was sprayed with kitchen cleaner.  It had been suggested that Maz used her perfume as it would probably incapacitate it quicker but the "fuck OFF, that shit's expensive!" meant we had to find other abrasive chemicals.

Finally, after falling to it's near-death on the toilet floor, Hadleigh swooped in, captured it with the toilet paper, then turned to thrust it in the face of the terrified by-standers.  

"I got it, YEAH!!"

After yet some more involuntary incontinence, Maz high-fived Hadleigh, and the Antichrist was flushed.  She was made to check and recheck that it had gone down and wasn't in fact clinging to the ledge waiting for revenge on the next visitor, then all were happy that it was finally OK to retire to bed.

After several "we survived" stories, we all parted ways.

Finally climbing into bed, safe and secure from all beasts and Antichrists and certain a snake wasn't going to appear, Nana K calculated that she'd get approximately 1 hour 50 minutes sleep before getting up to get Briar from work.

Rolling over, phone off, lights out, Nana K reached out to make sure Little K was OK.

Little K rolled over, sighed in her sleep, snuggled up to Nana K, right before she suffered a massive bout of involuntary incontinence.