Lizard hazards

 

               Lizard Hazards

 

The table cloth covering our dining table was littered with broken eggs of some lizard. This was intriguing. Is a lizard playing havoc during the night? I looked up to God in despair. Oh, what did I find? A fat lizard had made it his house - the plastic cup which is a part of the ceiling fan. Another morning, I found broken plastic pieces on the same cloth! This is too much; I should do something serious urgently.

 

Normally after boiling the milk, I keep it on the table, without cover or lid so that the milk could cool before shifting it to the fridge. Now I guess it is risky. The milk could be easily contaminated. What if, if a lizard falls into the hot milk? Neither the lizard would be alive to narrate the accident nor the milk would complain that it has become a poisonous beverage.

 To handle this problem, simplest would be to break and remove that plastic cup. Or spray some strong insecticide (lizardicide?) into the cup. But that is a bit inaccessible. Keep all things always closed. Anyway, our dining table is never used for dining – so the probability of getting the food we are eating spoilt by lizard droppings is near zero.

 My father taught me to look at positive side of problems. Lizards chase insects like flies and keep the environment insect free.  Watching a lizard prayerfully watching and catching its prey is fascinating fun. You must learn to be as still as the lizard. Again, a couple of lizards chasing each other and playing is also fun until thy disappear for some private affair behind the almirah.

 Any active household can never be rid of cockroaches. So is the case with lizards. Let me learn more tricks to deal with this fellow. Until then, bye!

  

 

 

Our New Fridge

                                              Our New Fridge

My new Samsung double-door-full-height-fridge is annoyingly religious. It keeps ringing the puja bell, warning me often to close the door, as if it is time for the deity inside to be dressed up or some special puja to be performed. But I like the fridge: it is really voluminous and I can store lots of things. In fact, it is so big (compared to the one we had earlier) that I have started keeping things Maida floor, Bombay or Idly Rava and the like. And when I need them, I forget that I have kept them in the fridge, look for them in the kitchen shelves and re-order, running into duplicate supplies. 

 It is so large that it reminds me about the vault in banks. Sometimes I think it is too big an investment in terms of size and cost. Had it been a safe vault, would I have been blessed with enough money to stuff it in?

 The fridge is indecently intolerant about handling power cuts. Wants to be fed all the time, with electricity.  If there are power failures, even for short durations, that we are blessed with through the courtesy of TSSPDCL, the fridge is wary of preserving anything fresh. And who benefits, if I want to dispose of before the stuff becomes inedible? The servant maids, of course.

 In the nights if I happen to pass into the kitchen, the fridge reminds itself of its presence by a small continuous buzzing sound, making me feel comfortable that I am not alone – I have company of sorts.

 In TV serials, the fridge is a silent spectator to many acts of villainy: Readily provides a bottle of poison. And  at times tempts the villain to add salt to Sambar / Rasam / curry. Sometimes helps him substitute a bottle of squash with – you know what! Fortunately, my fridge is not worried about villains as our family has just two members - mutually trusting father and daughter!