I rescued two kittens, twice today!

Late last night, my wifey complained of her desperate yet unsuccessful attempts to locate one of the two little kittens living in the back of the house. The two little kits, one marmalade and one blackish have been roaming our little backyard since they were born. Wifey had allowed their stray mother to occupy the space (she has such a soft spot for these cuties). In fact, she had been cooking (boiling) a plate of small fishes to feed the stray cats at the backyard every lunch and dinner, in particular, the mother cat since she was pregnant so that mother cat will have enough milk.

So, you see, she was upset that one of the stray kitten (barely 3 weeks old, I think) has gone missing. Only Blackish was seen tottering with mother cat. Wifey claims she can hear the tiny meow-meowing of the missing Marmalade in the septic tanks. Gosh! We have 5 rectangular septic tank covers behind our house, within our fenced perimeter. We were thinking how in the world can a little cat get into the septic tank underground?

Wifey couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking of the little stray kitten that has gone missing.

Early this morning, therefore, being the man-of-the-house, I grudgingly put my ears near each of the septic tank covers. Surprisingly, the meow sounds seem to emanate from covers 3 and 4. But I told myself, it couldn’t be, because, underneath covers 3 and 4, the tank is completely filled with sewage water, almost 7 feet deep, I remembered.

So operation reconnaissance and rescue ALPHA for this morning has begun! First, we (myself, wifey and my kid) armed ourselves with multiple cans of insecticide, among which was the more potent cockroach kill spray. I opened cover number 1, and almost 20 cockroaches fled upwards and everywhere onto our legs (like a scene from Fear Factor maybe) but no cat. Cover number 2, more cockroaches, more insecticide spraying, still not kitten. Cover number three yielded some meowing sounds and of course a whole full tank of gross sewage liquid but the kitten cannot be seen. Screamed for a mirror and a torchlight amidst the dodging of scurrying cockroaches. Maybe 50 of them!

My kid sprayed with both hands, the cans of insecticide, emptying them more or less like the computer games he played (Half-life?) using two guns, haha. Makes him kind of a hero for a while.

And so we opened, with better practice, cover number 4, half expecting to see Marmalade. Nay, he wasn’t there! But now we can hear the weak meows. So he must be hanging on somewhere between the distance of cover 3 and cover 4. On all fours, which was rather awkward, as cockroaches keep fleeing the septic tank, I peered in, with torchlight, mirror, etc. Nothing! Cleverly, I put in two of those white foam insulation when you open a new box of the computer monitor or tv and float it into the septic tank, hoping the little kitten can use it as a “life-raft”. Nothing appeared.

Finally, also desperately, I stick my hand as far back into opening number 4 towards number 3, felt something wet, and grabbed it out. There it was, all soaked, dirty, the little Marmalade kitten, tired but alive.

Wifey gave it a quick bath with the tap, and sacrificed my favourite pair of sport shorts to wipe dry the little lucky fella. Wifey made a little warm bed using my shorts and a plastic pail and put Marmalade in. Actually, it fell asleep instantly.

We were pretty tired, imagine stomping over still crawling active cockroaches by the hundreds, dodging them before they crawl up your legs, even after Marmalade was rescued, because the opening of the tank covers has disturbed their dark environment.

End of operation ALPHA.

We went out shopping for about 4 hours. When we returned, wifey went to the back, opened the kitchen door and now finds Blackish missing. Mother cat has only Marmalade, dry and pretty now. Instinctively, we lowered our ears to cover 3 and 4 again. Can you believe it? Meow-meow indeed again underground.

Being more practiced, we launched operation recon and rescue BETA for missing kitten Blackish. We found it, more quickly, again between cover 3 and 4, underground. Zapped it up with gloved hands, washed it under the tap and also dry it with my beloved pair of shorts. Pop him into the warm pail just like before for Marmalade. Thankfully, the cockroaches have all died from the earlier doses of insecticide spray.

Incredible. We rescued two kittens from the same underground place, that is twice in a day. It is a real test of patience.

We still cannot understand how the kittens got underground and lost in the septic tank.

Public toilets - taps

I won’t bore you people with the public toilets craze.

I will only talk about the taps on the sinks in public toilets. Nothing nauseating.

You see, it is very common to find the water taps on the sinks that are the “press button” type. To use, you press down the spring loaded button, then clean water comes out for about half a minute. To continue washing, you may press the button again. (You all know this).

A little tricky situation exists here. Say, you press once, and your hands are initially wet by the flow. Then you apply the hand soap, rubs your hands together. With soapy hands, you press the button and rinse them for 30 seconds. Water stops. Not quite done yet, you press again, washes your hands. You cup some water over the button to remove the soap lathers which you transferred from you palm earlier. But the flow stops again. For the third time, you press the button. Transferred a little of the remaining soap to the button. Cupped a little more water to clean the button. Phew! Just in time to completely rinse both hands.

Meanwhile, the accumulated water starts to flood around the rim of the sink from the action of washing the button. You start wondering if you are guilty of making the sink tops wet and messy. You start wondering if it would have been better if you have left the button horribly soapy for the next person instead of flooding the sink tops. What a tricky situation.

Things might be better, you wonder as you leave the public toilet, if the press button allows a much longer flow – so that the hands can be cleaned of soap and the button didn’t need rinsing too, all in one go. Or they make the rims of the sink tops sloping inwards so that water flows naturally down instead of flooding around. Ha. Wondering.

Men Peeing in the Toilet (non-offensive)

A little more stuff about this little business going on behind closed (toilet) doors.

Speaking from experience, ahem, (I’m a man!), those little inventions of sticking a bull’s eye circle in the urinal bowls may not really solve the problem of toilet “mis-aiming”.

I think it is every gentlemen’s masculine desire to point and shoot accurately but the whole process of peeing is a little more complicated than it seems.

From my experience (again?), the initiation of the urine flow needs some muscular and organ control and for some bodily reasons, the liquid sometimes does not flow out “straight ahead” but instead skews to one side (usually the right hand side). So, there you have a mis-aimed shot, unintentionally skewed.

Having realized how the flow curves to the side, that gentleman will rotate his pelvis correspondingly to offset the loss in accuracy for the greater portion of this bodily excretion.

As the pressure in the bladder reduces, in the final few drops, the urine again fails to meet the target, and unless the gentleman leans forward a little more, the urine actually falls into the floor below.

Hence the bull’s eye remains a aim-shoot-miss-reaim process.

The Selamat (Safe) Culture launched by the Minister of Transport appeals to all road users to choose safety as culture in all aspects of our life.

It is saddening therefore to come across numerous motorcyclists who are still stubbornly straying into the expressway instead of riding safely in the motorcycle lanes specially built for them.

Every morning when I go to work, I will see several motorcyclists zooming along the Kesas highway which I use to travel to Puchong. They do not seem to be aware of the signboards at each of the entry that clearly mean "Motorcycles not permitted on the expressway" and "Motorcycles - Use the special lane".

Such straying of the motorcyclists are also very prevalent on the Federal Highway from Klang to KL even on hot sunny days, where there is no "tunnel flooded" issues. One often wonders if it is really a waste of funds to build the special motorcycle lanes if they are ignored by the riders.

By riding and encroaching into the expressway meant for cars and bigger vehicles, these motorcyclist are endangering everybody's life. I can't understand why, contrary to the Selamat Culture, they choose danger instead of safety.

Shoes and halal problems

This afternoon, while we thought most of the KL folks would have deserted the city, we drove to Mid Valley but we were caught in a continuous loop of cars looking for parking. We ended up parking at Subang Jaya and took the KTM Komuter instead. Co$T for 3 persons by KTM to and fro Subang Jaya and Mid V totalled RM12. Possibly much cheaper by car instead of public transport.

While at Mid V, we headed straight up to Nike sports shoes, got a pair each for my kid and my wife. They had R__bok which were wearing out, so needed replacement badly (wifey's little left toe was peeking out through its little hole, kid's shoes grew so flat that his feet felt the hard floor, whatever happened to the sole cushion.)

Then we shopped for daily groceries at the Jus__ supermarket. Bought some vegetables, fish heads and prawns. Picked up Heinz baked beans and then we proceeded to the tofu section. THEN SOMEONE STOPPED ME NEXT TO THE SUSHI CORNER AND ACCUSED ME, I quote, "You put the PORK there!!!" (he spoke in broken English). He was a Malay staff of Jus__ and he pointed to the shelves ahead of us. I was rather annoyed that he had the cheek to be so impolite on two points: a) We had not even arrived at the "whatever" shelves ahead that he was pointing at; b) We are Muslims!

I told the staff I don't know what he is accusing me of, but I stated very clearly (and loudly, forgive me) that I am a Muslim and please don't even talk of PORK with me. All he did was mumble "Muslim, ah Muslim?". He offered no apology for such terrible accusation. All I can tell you now is that my wife and my kid are really stunned by such impolite behaviour of the staff.

Perhaps, in this month of Ramadhan, he could have performed more professionally for his supermarket like getting a non-Muslim staff to relocate the non-halal item to the proper shelf instead of wildly accusing an unfortunate passing-by customer.