Thank God For Brothers

"..I am strong,
when I am on your shoulders.."

Dear lonely isle,

Thank god for brothers. And all people who are willing to catch cockroaches for you in the middle of the night. After a bath.

• Remember El Maximus Disgustus?
• Apparently the tiny sucker wasn't done with ruining my day.
• First I was told that I do have a cockroach (courtesy of hardworking cheerleaders scouring the back alleys at night.)
• But then, bloody misfortune falls.
• My cockroach just had to break a leg. Legs, actually.
  
• And it so happens we MUST absolutely have perfect specimens.
• So what do you do? (Actually I sat around and moped first.)
• Thanks to a kind soul (Mich) who enlightened me about the possibilities of not failing my peka if and only if I get up off my ass, go out there and catch a cockroach, I decided on that course of action.
• Which turned out to be, er, Dutch courage of a sort, because I suddenly wake up sober at the thought of holding a net and actually catching the thing.
• So what do you do?
• Look for a hero.
  
• I went to beg my brother.
• After much persuasion and sad looks, he agreed (Yay!).
• Problem is, even with a net and plastic bag supplied by Ann Gee, I knew I was going to be of no use that night.
• I was right.
• I stood about two metres away from my brother at all times and watched him struggle with the plastic bag and net (which is smaller than a hankerchief, by the way) trying to catch brown, fast things in the dark, while mamak workers sniggered on. ( I was so terrified I didn't even notice them)
• The best part was when he handed me the plastic and I kinda squeezed.
• Thinking it was dead, my brother dropped the cockroach on the floor.
• Then it ran away. (Told you them buggers were smart!)
• When we finally caught the half squeezed thing, it was somewhere round nearly twelve.
• I am serious when I say that I am terrified of them things (I cried in the car when I had to hold the bag and the stupid thing started moving. And no, I'm not ashamed of myself. Neither am I buying that "to overcome fear, you must become fear" bullshit.)
• This was then, the hero of the day, Terence the Great, pulled over and let me drive, offering to hold the bag all the way home!
• Thank god for brothers. Who're willing to save you from your greatest fear and carry it all the way home.
• Tear-streaked and still in shock, my body worked on automatic all the way home, responding to driving instructions from my brother. (That's why we actually made it home safe.)
• It just made me reassess my brother that night, and put him in a different light, a light I haven't seen him in quite awhile.
  

I think it's a little sign, a reminder that this little sister is still loved after all.

love, joyce.