Naked Came I

Quickly, Brent: to the Snakecopter!

So goes the order from Haldre regarding the recent Rapid Response call! Here’s the story:

It was Monday night and all was quiet on the western shore. Brent and Haldre were taking it easy at her place following some intense outrigger paddling. No butt pain this time, so I was told, but it wore them out a bit nonetheless. Taking a passing look at her malfunctioning cell phone, Haldre saw that there had recently been a call from an unfamiliar area code. Upon listening to the message, which (likely as the result of a bad connection) she could barely understand, it was a Rapid Response call. Snakes in our midst. My God, man!

She made haste in attempting to call back numerous times, but to no avail. Finally, she managed to get through, although not to the original caller, but her daughter. It turns out the call was from Florida, a mere 8,000+ miles away. Haldre learned from the daughter that what happened, all too excitingly enough, was that recently her mother had purchased a mattress. Upon arriving home with the mattress, she heard a noise inside. Fearing the worst, the woman returned the mattress immediately, without attempting to learn what was causing the unsettling rustle within. However, this sound was enough solid evidence for her to know that it must certainly be a snake.

But what kind of snake?! Given that she lives in Florida, there were very few options. This is because, as you likely know, there are very few reptiles and amphibians in that region. Yes, Florida, the most herpetologically dead zone in the continental U.S. Most likely what she did was go to a search engine online and type in things like “Snake!,” “Mattress!,” and “Help!” One of the websites that surly came up was for the Rapid Response program. Ah ha! Let’s see here, some snake called the brown treesnake that gets into people’s homes. That must be it! Of course, she failed to realize a few minor details, such as the fact that the Rapid Response Team deals with sightings on predominantly snake-free islands in the Pacific, that she had no evidence whatsoever that what she heard in her mattress was a snake, or that there are a ridiculous number of snake species in Florida, none of which, to my knowledge, are the brown treesnake.

Needless to say, there won’t be a deployment. Florida would be a nice place to go, but the search would be pretty brief. “Okay, where’s the mattress? Here? Okay. Brent, set up a couple transects. I know, just try to flag somewhere between the stitching. I’ll take a chainsaw to the box spring and we’ll see what comes out. Matt, set up a temporary barrier around this thing before we cut it open. We don’t want anything escaping!” Then they could just kick back and drink Piña Coladas on South Beach for another 10 days. Hmm, on second thought, maybe there should be a deployment!

I’ve got another strange story for you, this time from Thursday night. We had just conducted a roadline search up near the refuge. On our way back, we (that is, Andy, Brent, Haldre, and I) stopped at 7-11 so Brent could get a drink. Soon after Brent went inside, a big, Caucasian, only partially official-looking police officer came up towards our car. I was in the driver’s seat, Andy was riding shotgun, and Haldre was in the back. This guy was wearing a polo with an embroidered police logo on the chest and his badge was placed proudly around his neck in true macho street cop fashion. All tuff, all the time. The conversation began:

Cop: “Can you guys help me out for a minute?”

Me: ‘What’s up?”

Cop: “I got a couple monkeys in there. Could you keep an eye on them for me?”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Cop: “I’ve got a couple teenagers in there. I’m holding them for theft and I just need someone to watch them while I go get my car. They’re sitting down by the door inside.”

Monkeys? So, Andy and I somewhat reluctantly went over to the front doors and “stood guard.” It turns out the teenagers were very much kids. They didn’t look much older than 14 and both were Chamorro. What was even more disturbing was that there had been numerous other guys in the parking lot from whom this guy could have requested assistance. The only thing was, they were all Chamorro men: obviously not to be trusted by Officer Tuffnuts, especially if guarding “their kind.” Maybe, and just maybe, he saw that we had government plates and decided we were somewhat responsible (ha!), but I doubt it. He came over to the car from the side and I never saw him look down at our plates

Almost immediately after the officer rounded the corner to get his car, one of the kids opened the door on Andy’s side and asked if he could “use the restroom.” This, as we all know, means “make a break for it” when your life is under immediate threat from a large authority figure. Andy told the kid to just stay inside until the guy got back. Obviously depressed, the kid sat back down. Quickly thereafter, the cop rounded the corner in his bright orange, sparkling clean Camaro. Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised. As he exited his testosterone mobile, a cruiser pulled up, escorting what appeared to be the getaway vehicle of the other two accomplices. Apparently they weren’t following any honor among thieves and left their friends behind.

Our involvement ended when the officer thanked us for our help and, after the kid asked him if he could use the bathroom, we heard him say (with as much distain for the little miscreant as he could muster), “No. No, go sit back down. You commit theft, your ass is mine!” Moral of the story: don’t steal food from the 7-11 in Dededo…especially if you’re Chamorro…and there’s an orange Camaro around.

That’s really the only excitement from out here in the Pacific. I’m pretty much all settled into my new apartment, which makes me feel more at home. For a week my stuff was strewn all over the floor or in relative disorder inside dilapidated cardboard boxes. Now I have a little bookshelf, some new sheets, even a laundry basket! My mom would be especially proud of the stackable plastic shelves I got, one of her specialties. I’m sure the cleanliness won’t last for long, but at least I can walk across the floor without fear of sailing onto a cymbal stand and impaling myself.

And speaking of cymbal stand, I have a new drum set here, shipped to me from Midwest Percussion in Chicago. Oh, yes. I couldn’t stand it. Going for over a year without drums was more than I could bear. So, to fulfill my desires, I bought a new kit (which I’ve been wanting to do for a couple years now), which I partially justified since I won’t be buying a car. My mom has mailed out my cymbals, stool, and a couple other accessories, so I should be good to go in about 2 weeks. (And for those of you cringing at the thought of drums in an apartment building, I have pads that damped the sound substantially, so I won’t be driving my neighbors insane… most of the time.)

Ah, to push oneself further into debt for the sake of musical satisfaction. However, this job pays well, so if I just force myself to hold up for a couple months in my room, living off brown rice and Nilla Wafers, I can pay off my bills. It may seem lonely from the outside, but I’ll be entertained. I have plenty of books to read, drums to play, and CDs to which I can listen. My blog postings may suffer in their content, but I’ll just make up stories to keep things interesting: “So there was this pack of angry Orangutans on my balcony, right? They were trying to break through my bedroom window, so I grabbed a spoon…”

Oh, I just thought of one final tale for you. This involves the recent and inevitable invasion of ants into our apartment. Ants are pretty much omnipresent here in Guam, but this is especially true to somewhat shoddy apartment buildings and the apartments therein that are less than immaculate and keep their A/C off almost constantly. We have been fortunate in that they have so far avoided our kitchen counters and gone predominantly to the recycling bind (we wash out- most of the time- containers before tossing them in there, but there is always a tiny bit of residue from which they can obtain nourishment). What amazed me, however, was how suddenly they appeared and the location in which I discovered them.

As of Friday we had no ants. Saturday morning, I was making a little pancake breakfast for some of my fellow snake wrastlers. As I was cooking at the stove, I looked through the opening beneath our cabinets that looks out onto the living room tiles and saw a brigade of ants marching across the floor. They were walking almost exclusively along one line of grout in classic orderly ant formation. The line was solid, composed of what looked like thousands (probably more like hundreds) of these industrious little fellows. They were coming from the balcony and appeared to be heading toward a bag of dog food Brent had sitting on the floor (left over from the dog who died out at closed pop.). Following the line, this wasn’t the case. In fact, they weren’t going towards any obvious food source at all, rather a living space. That space being the large box in which my drums were shipped.

This box has several boxes within it, so there were about 3 layers of flaps on the top. Between each flap was a thin but expansive area in which tiny ants could easily make a fancy home. Essentially, we had the perfect ant farm sitting in the middle of our living room. After following the troops up the side of the box and seeing them heading inside, I decided to open up one of the flaps on top to have a look. When I did, I exposed an area about the size of a small dinner plate solid with ants. They immediately scattered and began running at top speed out of the box. The signal must have traveled fast because all the ants in the line began making a break for the balcony. I assisted them with a broom.

Getting ant traps, or attempting other forms of active pest prevention, probably won’t do much good. Basically, we’ll just have to keep the place as neat as we can and live with our minuscule, and plentiful, friends. My drum box is now out on our balcony (inside of which ant numbers are likely growing exponentially) and it will soon be sent to Potts (if cleaned out) or the dumpster. Given its sogginess (and the fact that Claudine and Michelle will likely read this), most likely the latter.

Posted by Isaac at March 17, 2004 12:43 AM