ferrousland.com - diary archives
Monday, June 30, 2003
when animals attack - 07:54 PM
what a day i had today. it wasn't all bad, but a lot of it was: the dog was a real pain in the bum, i got bitten on the neck by two (almost three) bull ants & then i hit a kangaroo in the car!
let me tell you about my day.
i was so cranky when i got home today after washing the curtains at the old place. i didn't get a chance to eat breakfast you see (i know, i know .. breakfast is the most important meal of the day, blah, blah, blah) & so by the time mum & i had finished doing all the curtains in the house (the big double ones, when wet, were so heavy we needed the two of us to carry them out to drip dry a little bit) i was rather over tired & in need of food & a rest.
i'd brought the dog with me because i wasn't sure about leaving him at the house alone on his first day. if i could be certain that the fences were secure then it would be okay, but i'm pretty sure that mcgarnicle could simply jump over some of them if he really wanted to. he was very well behaved while we were washing the curtains. he just followed me from room to room all day. on the way home though, he was so annoying. he wouldn't stop whining & carrying on even though i told him to be quiet many, many times. i was cranky enough anyway, but by the time i got home i was so angry that i wouldn't have cared if he jumped out of the car & took off forever. i would have been sad later, of course, but as i said, i was really over tired.
i'd stopped on the way home to get some lunch & was really ready to eat. i wasn't feeling hungry, but i knew that i needed to get some energy into me. this morning i'd distributed a screen door key each to shroom & myself, as well as a front door key for shroom. i'd tested the screen door key already, but when i got to the front door, really ready to sit down, rest & eat, it wouldn't open! i wriggled & jiggled the key to no avail. that was pretty much the last straw, being locked out, so i burst into tears. just as i started crying i gave the key one last frustrated jiggle & it opened! very relieved. i thought i was going to have to call shroom at work to come home to try his key. that would have been an hour round trip for him. not terribly practical at all.
after getting inside i was still crying, because frankly, i'd had enough by that stage. it still smelled like paint inside, so i went around opening all the windows to make sure that i didn't poison rudegere & myself. i was a bit chilly already, so opening the windows wasn't exactly making me happy. i still don't know where my jumper is packed, so i walked aimlessly around the house from room to room literally crying, "all i want is my jumper .. all i want is my stupid jumper!!" finally i found one of shroom's hanging in the wardbrobe in our room. this was amongst about four items i'd hung in there after i'd found them in a box when i was looking for a clean pair of undies last night. it made me happy to have something warm to wear, but even more happy that it was actually shroom's jumper, not mine, because the jumper of a loved one is always better than your own. almost any girl you ask could relate to this, i think. it made me feel a bit comforted.
finally i got to eat & i felt substantially better. i was going to rest, but i had a few things to do first & then didn't get a chance to because i ended up meeting one of our neighbours & talking to her for a while after the dog got into her yard & started claiming every stump, tree & fence post as his own.
while we were talking, i was sitting on the ground for a small amount of time, just to rest my back, talking through the fence. i felt a small sting on my neck & was absent-mindedly rubbing it, thinking it might have been a particularly nasty mozzie or something. a few minutes later, i felt something on my neck again & it turned out to be a bull ant, which i flicked off, but not before it managed to bite me, the little bugger. i got up from the ground at that stage. i realised too, that the first bite was also a bull ant, although perhaps it was a smaller one, because it didn't hurt as much. a few minutes later again, another ant was on my neck! i don't know what the attraction there was, but i managed to get rid of this one before he bit me.
after saying "seeya later" to our neighbour, i ordered some chinese take-away (the cooking utensils come out tomorrow when mum's going to help me unpack. might have a home cooked meal, finally) & headed out, following the neighbour's directions, to find the chinese food place.
about three minutes down the road, a flaming huge kangaroo saw me coming & decided it wanted the same bit of road that i was on. it looked me in the eye angrily as it jumped into the side of the car & then ricocheted off. i slammed the brakes on while i yelled a few choice words & watched it stare at me in the rear view mirror, then jump off the way it had come.
tell you what .. it scared the bejeebees out of me. it took off the driver's side mirror which had smashed back into the side of the door & broken all the glass in it. it was now hanging off a kind of cable, swinging around in the breeze. i could see a big clump or two of kangaroo hair stuck in the broken hinge. no blood at all. i think the kangaroo was fine. i wasn't so fine. i managed to keep driving, but i burst into tears for the second time that day.
i came out of it very well. kangaroos are tough animals. they can totally write off a car if they hit it at the right angle .. or it could have come straight through the windscreen & hit me. shroom would have come home to a wife & unborn baby which had recently had a large kangaroo not-so-surgically implanted in our heads.
i pulled myself together enough to pick up the food & checked out the side of the car before i jumped back in. the front side panel has a good dint, as well as the driver's side door, not to mention the side mirror which has definitely seen better days before today.
when shroom arrived home & came back towards the house after locking the front gate i said, "walk on the other side of my car. take a look." he saw the mirror & swore. he asked what happened & if i was okay. i said that i was & told him about the kangaroo. he gave me big hug. i was mostly cried out by that stage, so i only made a small cry face & just enjoyed the hug.
poor shroom had got a tiny bit lost on the way home (first time home to our new house from work & in the dark) & would probably have a had a whinge about that, but i think he realised that he could have had it far worse after hearing about my pretty crappy day. he's never hit a roo before, so i've now had one experience which he's never had. i guess the chance of hitting a roo comes with the territory of living further out of the suburbs.
it sure is good to be home in our beautiful new house .. & all in one piece. the car can be fixed easily, neither of us really care about that. shroom & i are just both glad that rudegere & myself are fine.
what a day! *hugs*
btw... your remember me isn't
glad you and the baby are all
alright. Hitting large animals
can be a real bugger.
what a day, for the first day in the new house! greetings from edwin
oh my .. fortunately you two are alright. Take care
That bloody roo, are they often that spiteful? It's a relief to know you're okay.
McGarnicle's whining will stop eventually, likely shortly after you've unpacked and settled into the house. I've seen dogs do it before. They're pack animals who value their "den". You changed dens, and he doesn't consider the new house his den yet. Once your "things" are all around and the place smells right to him, he'll be fine.
Goodness... running into kangaroos! Glad you're okay.
my what a day you've had? have a big *hug* from me too. trains have cattle catchers, maybe you need a roo catcher on you bumper.
thank goddess you're alright!!! *hugs*
i have tears in my eyes just from reading this!! *hugs again*
Oh my goodness!!!! what a day!!! you poor thing!!. For a minute there I thought you were going to say McGarnicle ate your lunch!. Don't worry by next week this will all seem like a bad dream and you'll feel like you'ved lived in the place forever.
kangaroos? Is that like us hitting Deer over here? Some of them will take out the whole front end of the car.
I hit my first animal at the beginning of the year - a possum who, like your roo, saw me coming and made the dash at the last minute. It was all the more distressing because we made eye contact first.
Glad to hear that you're okay, roos can make a big mess. It almost sounds as though he did it on purpose, perhaps it's breeding season and he's territorial? Either way, I'd be finding an alternative route to the chinese shop...
Anyway, I thought it was about time that I introduced myself... I'm a Brisbanite as well!
gmail
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crikey!! i am glad that you and rudy are ok. make shroom pamper you extra good tonight.