A Sydney pest controller has claimed a world record for spending four hours in a tank with 105 deadly funnel-web spiders.
This has caused an immediate surge of interest down our way and challenges are coming fast from Cockroach Corner, where I live in constant peril
For Instance, there was my sojourn in our garden with 85 snails which would gnaw a green finger clean to the bone. I shall never forget the awful tension, lying there in the garden (I’ve lied about the garden for years) and hearing the snails hacking through the undergrowth, the frenzied bellowing of the wounded buffalo grass as it charged its tormentors.
My wife screamed: “Are you doing anything with those snails, or are you letting them slide as usual.”
She was lucky I didn’t slug her. Instead I gave a low laugh, turned jungle green and quickly crossed the herbaceous border.
Then there was the endurance record I set with the white ants “I can hear something gnawing” my wife shrieked.
So I put away the biscuit tin and listened.
She called a pest controller, and he had me under control in five minutes.
He certainly went after those ants, although I thought that he rather overdid it, what with his Warpaint and feathered headdress.
Then, of course, there was our experience with the mice, from which we had a very narrow squeak. My wife and daughter tried all kinds of methods to frighten the creatures such as spitting, scratching and yowling. The mice were unmoved but I stayed on top of the wardrobe,
Finally we each bought a catching device. They went off with a deafening crash and, for the first time In our household, everyone had her trap shut.
Then there was the terrible time we had bees in the ventilator. We called an apiarist “Ah, yes” he said to me. “I can hear them. Lean your head a little closer.”
Finally he collected the swarm but my daughter raced after him shouting, “Hey, you’ve forgotten one of the drones.
I gave that girl a sting in the tail, I can tell you.
Mind you, we also have the fearless people who remain in the bath for two hours under the full, menacing gaze of three daddy-long-legs, a silverfish and a huntsman spider which dances to the tune “D’yer ken John Peel.”
Then there was the friend who reads Mr. Burton’s column on English and was badly scratched by adverbial clauses
So what are 105 funnel-web spiders when people have had awful experiences with 101 trombones or 101 Dalmatian and we mustn’t forget Daniel addressing the first lions’ club.
My family members also claim the record for living simultaneously with a monster, a beast, a chauvinist pig and wolf in sheep’s clothing. These are occasionally joined by a bear with a sore head.
Well, you have to hand it to them. And then there’s the man who’s scared to go to Maslins Beach on a hot day.
He’s afraid of the red-backs!
Max Fatchen