vermin revisited
Ivanildo's son Matheus has been sleeping at his aunt's place for the past couple of weeks or so. She lives in the same building complex, about a 30-second walk away, and to be honest, it's a much nicer place. They have a couch which doesn't look like a Goodwill reject, which is always nice. I can't say the same, unfortunately, for his parents' place. Why am I writing so much garbage on the minutiae of daily life here at the Janus building in the Condominio Sistema Solar, in Pernambúes? Because the reason Matheus is sleeping at his aunt's is that A FREAKING RAT ATE HIS BROTHER TIAGO'S GODDAMN MATTRESS.
I'll attempt to soften that blow by saying that the rat in question is no longer with us, thanks to a 100-year-old-looking prune-faced woman named Dalvina who lives in the complex. She's the mother of Ivanildo's brother-in-law, David (get all that? I'm lost too.) Apparently she told Ivanildo that "That Matheus (pointing to me, as opposed to Matheus the 9-year-old) doesn't understand anything I say." Ivanildo said that he quelled the urge to say, "Dalvina, we don't understand anything that you say," because she's from the interior of Bahia, aka the Sertão, and talks with a really thick accent using rustic words and in a very high voice.
I don't know how exactly she killed it, but my guess is that it was through bludgeoning or beating of some kind. I don't think there's shovel around, but there are brooms, so maybe she did it with that. I really wish I had a picture of her that I could post here (and the deficit of conscience required to post pictures of people and make fun of them without their knowledge) so you could get some idea of how hilarious (and scary) it must have been to see this short, slightly overweight old woman chasing a mutant, mattress-eating rat around with a broom or whatever.
When you take into consideration her life experience, my guess as a homemaker and/or similar domestic profession, you can see why she was the most qualified to take care of the rat problem. My guess is that she's killed more than a few of those sons of bitches in her time, and at this point she's probably just plain deadly when it comes to this type of thing, a "rat ninja", if you will.
And while we're on the topic of gross vermin, you should see how blasé people are about other things like cockroaches. All the women here wear havianas or sandals or something else that leaves their feet nearly bare. This, in addition to the proliferation of (again, mutant) cockroaches in the apartments and all of the sidewalks in the condominium or on the street, leaves them susceptible to the inevitable cockroach crawling over their bare feet when they're not paying attention. I, of course, when I see this happen to them, brace myself for what I'm certain will be a horror-movie caliber scream, but it never comes. They just brush it off, or do nothing, and don't even chase it down to kill it when it goes on its panicked little way. I, of course, am inclined to jump on a chair and scream like a little schoolgirl whenever I see one of these things, but luckily no one has witnessed anything like that yet. They do laugh, though, when I jump at the sight of a cockroach, or at least a big one. "Matt's afraid of cockroaches," they say, laughing and pointing. And in the same breath at least one of them will give the expected horror-movie scream when she sees a freaking half-inch-long caterpillar. Go figure.
I'll attempt to soften that blow by saying that the rat in question is no longer with us, thanks to a 100-year-old-looking prune-faced woman named Dalvina who lives in the complex. She's the mother of Ivanildo's brother-in-law, David (get all that? I'm lost too.) Apparently she told Ivanildo that "That Matheus (pointing to me, as opposed to Matheus the 9-year-old) doesn't understand anything I say." Ivanildo said that he quelled the urge to say, "Dalvina, we don't understand anything that you say," because she's from the interior of Bahia, aka the Sertão, and talks with a really thick accent using rustic words and in a very high voice.
I don't know how exactly she killed it, but my guess is that it was through bludgeoning or beating of some kind. I don't think there's shovel around, but there are brooms, so maybe she did it with that. I really wish I had a picture of her that I could post here (and the deficit of conscience required to post pictures of people and make fun of them without their knowledge) so you could get some idea of how hilarious (and scary) it must have been to see this short, slightly overweight old woman chasing a mutant, mattress-eating rat around with a broom or whatever.
When you take into consideration her life experience, my guess as a homemaker and/or similar domestic profession, you can see why she was the most qualified to take care of the rat problem. My guess is that she's killed more than a few of those sons of bitches in her time, and at this point she's probably just plain deadly when it comes to this type of thing, a "rat ninja", if you will.
And while we're on the topic of gross vermin, you should see how blasé people are about other things like cockroaches. All the women here wear havianas or sandals or something else that leaves their feet nearly bare. This, in addition to the proliferation of (again, mutant) cockroaches in the apartments and all of the sidewalks in the condominium or on the street, leaves them susceptible to the inevitable cockroach crawling over their bare feet when they're not paying attention. I, of course, when I see this happen to them, brace myself for what I'm certain will be a horror-movie caliber scream, but it never comes. They just brush it off, or do nothing, and don't even chase it down to kill it when it goes on its panicked little way. I, of course, am inclined to jump on a chair and scream like a little schoolgirl whenever I see one of these things, but luckily no one has witnessed anything like that yet. They do laugh, though, when I jump at the sight of a cockroach, or at least a big one. "Matt's afraid of cockroaches," they say, laughing and pointing. And in the same breath at least one of them will give the expected horror-movie scream when she sees a freaking half-inch-long caterpillar. Go figure.
posted by n10471 at 9:54 AM
1 Comments:
I actually told the story of Dad killing the squirrel here a couple of days ago, and as usual, it didn't carry the comedic weight when translated into caveman Portuguese. I think for both of us, that particular incident was told secondhand and for that reason it's hard to know how exaggerated which parts are, etc. I had the Dad-killing-squirrel story in mind when I described Dalvina killing the rat, since I only heard about it and didn't see it. So I'm sure I subliminally (or consciously) wrote this story in a very similar way to what I imagined it looked like with Dad bludgeoning to death a half-dead squirrel. Except if you saw this woman you would see why it would make an already funny story SO much funnier.
Post a Comment
<< Home