The Mother of Forty-Four

So i'm slumped infront of the couch watching TV late last night, when I hear a terrifying scream coming from the kitchen; I get up to see what was going on, and it turns out my wife had spotted an insect that managed to help her scream her lungs out.

Now i'll have to say, my wife is pretty brave in general, but when it comes to little bugs and creepy-crawlies (and mice), nothing can make her forget everything she's doing and run screaming.

So what was this little bug? It was a worm-like creature we traditionally call ام اربعة و اربعين, literally translating into "the mother of forty-four" (as in relation to the number of legs it has). Now me being the man of the house, went ahead to kill it as I do all bugs that manage to appear out of nowhere, when my wife started screaming again "DOOONNNNTTT! THAT THING CAN KILL YOUUUUU!"

I stopped. Dammit. I do remember being told as a child that these "mothers of forty-four" are actually pretty poisonous, and to be careful of them, but as I grew older I sort of dismissed that as some sort of urban legend. Were they poisonous, though?

So here I am, a little under a meter away from the killer mother; I stare at her, she stares me back. Well, she doesn't actually, she just sits there, wiggles once every few seconds, and I wonder if the next few minutes will be the last moments of my life, in combat with the little beast.

I think quickly, and notice a huge glass in the cupboard right behind killer momma. I make a quick move for it; in the background, the chilling screams coming from my wife fill the room. As I jump towards the glass, the mother wriggles more and prepares to stand, while suddely everything seems to run in slow motion; the colors fade into black and white as I grab the glass, and balance myself to avoid being poisoned by the venomous monster. Enter background music; heavy metal. She doesn't just sit there, though, she lifts herself up on half of her legs, stands up, about to attack; we were in full combat mode now, it was just me and her, looking each other eye to eye, waiting for the first person to make a move. With a quick move of dexterity and skill I slide forward and land the glass on top of her, turn it upside down, scooping her up as she squirms trying to escape the glass prison while spewing her toxic venom everywhere. I grab the nearest tissue box and cover the top of the glass.

Phew. She's trapped now. Everything turns from black and white into color again as I realize its finally safe, and the heavy metal background music fades away. Little did I realize this whole process took a little under 5 seconds; felt like an hour. How time freezes when you're so close to losing your life.




Anyhow, I manage to take the offender out to the garden, and Pif-Paf the hell out of her. She squirms and wriggles, as if trying to resist, clinging on to her soul, but alas, she finally stopped moving.

Mission Over. Finally.

Anyway, doing a little research afterwards leads me to the conclusion that the little monster was, infact, a centipede. Only one case of death has ever been recorded, and that was by a large centipede biting a young child; otherwise, their bites can result in a reasonably painful rash.

Dammit. So much for my near-death experience.

Unlimited Resources

So the water to our house got cut the other day. It wasn't a big deal, really; in Bahrain, you get used to random water or electricity cuts every now and then, especially during the summer periods. However, this wasn't your average "few hours" disconnection. No. The problem actually lasted a few days; besides just disconnecting the water, turns out the main pipe coming in from the Ministry of Works had some sort of huge leak, and it took them a good 4 days to fix it.

So here we are without water. No big deal, the ministry said the problem would be solved quickly. We could handle it; the first day, we bought a few extra water bottles for the small requirements (washing your face, brushing your teeth etc), and the next day when we realised it still wasn't fixed, we called in a water company to bring in a big load to fill in our water tank/container (enough to last a day or so).

Third day, still no progress, more water bottles. Same situation on the fourth day.

Finally we got the water back, but something had changed. Most of us usually take the water supply coming in for granted, and use it like there's no tommorow. However, when you're using a very limited resource, your usage habits change. When you know theres hardly any water left in the water tank above your house, you really try to save every last drop. When you have a water bottle to wash your hands with, you can suprise yourself with how little water you actually need. Little things like leaving the tap on while you actually brush your teeth while the water just spills into the sink start to seem devastating.

Its amazing really, the way we misuse our resources, and the planet is already under pressure to keep pumping out clean water for our use. You see signs and posters everywhere; use water wisely, use electricity wisely, and so on. But do we care? It might seem like such a small issue if you switched off the tap while you brushed your teeth, and hardly something that could make a difference. But if you did it, your neighbor did it, your neighbourhood did it, your whole country did it, then yes, it does make a difference.

Well, problem is over now, and the water supply is back at full strength. I'm not using it the same way though, i'm not taking it for granted any more.

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UPDATE; 8 Oct 2007

I have been contacted by Kim Bridges, a member of Water; Use it Wisely, a website dedicated to helping people learn not only why they should save water, but how they could save water. Its an excellent resource, I urge you all to visit:

Free Burma...

Discussion; Happy with Life?

The last one went well, so we'll do another. I would appreciate everyone pitching in a little, giving some feedback, comments, and discussing the issue. It's pretty open ended so feel free to say whatever you like.

Discussion 2:

How happy are you with the life you are living right now? Are you content where you are, with the people around you? Job? Money? Relationships? Do you feel your life is fulfilling or do you feel some sort of emptiness? If you could, what would you change? Or would you change it completely, be somewhere else doing something totally different?

(Click on "comments" below to read what others wrote or to add your point of view)

80's & 90's

If you haven't already seen it, there's a 80's & 90's section at the top of the page. I've taken and put together a bunch of old memories, whether random thoughts, cartoons and TV shows, toys, etc.

Just decided to post something about it; take a look, it might bring back a few memories. I'm updating it all the time, so if there are any photos or videos you have and want to share, please send them over! Here's one of the videos just to bring a few memories back, see if you can remember it; this is from a Japanese game show that was called الحصن:

Check out the section at the top of the page for more memories :)