One evening in 1994, I sat in the
living room with my siblings. We had just downed a heavy dish, and the kids we
were, we launched into a very excitable state. Our parents had gone out so the
house filled with much animated conversation and noise followed by a lot of
laughter and mirth. As all this was going on, I noticed that my younger sister
stuck her left index finger in her ear and began wiggling it. After a bit, her
face wore a frustrated look from not getting enough satisfaction from using the
finger and her eyes began darting round the room for a better scratching tool.
Like me, my sister had developed a bad habit of sticking anything thin enough
into the itching ear. Mum, had often scolded us for this habit and forced us to
use a cotton bud to clean out the ear. But on rare occasions like this, when
she was not around, we indulged in the sinful act with abandon. Moments later,
my sister spotted a pencil lying on the floor behind the coffee table.
Unless somebody hypnotizes me and
takes me through the sequence of events of that evening, I cannot remember what
the noisy conversation was all about or even the dish we had just eaten. But, I
can never forget the next few micro-seconds that followed as my sister reached
for the pencil lurking behind the table. With left finger still in the ear, she
bent and stretched her right hand to pick the tail of the pencil. As she pulled
it up, it started becoming long and then its underside began turning to another
colour and in a split second the pencil became squirmy. Suddenly, my sister
screamed, “Snake!!!” How I jumped over the chair I was sitting on still eludes
me to date. Everyone scampered for safety and the laughter and mirth gave way
to the patter of feet and screams. Luckily, we got a neighbour to kill the
unwanted thin and long guest and ever since I have stopped using pencils to
scratch my ear. Nowadays, I only use keys, pen covers and, when Mum is around,
the cotton bud too.
