Tree Prose

The main beach on Koh Phangan, Haadrin, is infamous for Full Moon Party and every month somewhere from 6-25,000 people inhabit the island for 24 hours of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll…or techno in the case of modernity. Upon Maggie’s arrival, she made it clear that we would definitely be attending this party. What choice did I have?;) We got all dressed up, took a taxi, which is really a pick-up with benches in the back, to Haadrin. My Mama, the kind +65 year-old woman from whom I rent the house, was worried sick. She called Pi-Pat several times, etc. etc. While it was a very big party, danced until sunrise, we made it home from Haadrin just fine.

However, while I was standing in the kitchen the other night, doing dishes from our girls’ dinner party, (black bean hummus, spanish rice, beautiful salad—chocolate, of course:) Maggie says to me, “Tiff, there is a very large, winged bug coming underneath the door”. I said, “Well don’t let it in…swat it out, do something!” It was too late!…about midnight, in fact.

I walked into the ‘family room’ and sure enough, this very large, winged bug flew right into the bedroom and landed on a curtain. I looked at Maggie and said, “well, you let it in, what now?” As she got close to it, it took off again, and we both went screaming out of the house for the first time that night.

Slowly we walked back in, Maggie grabs her green beach towel, with a palm tree design and puts it over her head??? She walks back in the bedroom searching for the bug and finds it on the ceiling…proceeds, after a little prodding, to take the broom and try to swat at it- not before taking a few practice swings in the family room, of course…so towel covered broom in hand, she convinces me to ‘back her up’. At which point, I of course cover my head too, duh!…and we go into the room together, heads covered, the escape route planned, she gives it one good whap and we go running and screaming out the front door!

God love Mama. She must have heard the racket because from the dark of night we heard, “Tip, Tip” which is the Thai version of Tiff. She appeared on our doorstep with a flashlight. We tried to tell her it was a bug. However, the large flapping motions I did with my arms, must have made her think it was a pterodactyl because she turned around and reappeared in moments with Papa and a 6′ wooden stake.

Maggie then remembered she had taken a picture of this lecherous beast and showed it to Mama. Mama, as kind as she is, could not help but cover her face and laugh for a few moments. She said, “Not dangerous. No worry.”…Maggie said, “We don’t care, not dangerous, can’t sleep here”…So Mama and Papa go into the bedroom and shake out our bed, clothes, pillows, curtains, packs, you name it…no bug to be found.

Maggie and I, still standing in the family room, in the corner, with our heads covered, decide to go in and look too. Everyone is looking and this bug can’t be found anywhere. Papa went home. He laughed so hard when he saw the picture, I thought he’d pee…Mama had almost convinced us that the bug must have flown outside, when I spotted it. Guess where?…sitting right on top of Mama’s shoulder. I said, “Mama, the bug is on your shoulder” and pointed towards her right shoulder. She didn’t understand ‘shoulder’ so she spun around a few times looking for it, behind her, above her, on the opposite shoulder, etc.

Then Maggie, who had heard me when I said, ‘shoulder’ saw the bug too and said, “Mama, OUTSIDE”…just like that, Maggie was pushing our Mama out of the door, repeating very firmly and pointing outside “Mama, OUTSIDE”. When Mama had cleared the door frame, walking backwards and wondering why she was being pushed out, Maggie locked the door and waved goodbye. I kept saying, “Mama, your shoulder” and pointing to the bug. Finally from behind the glass window, we could see that Mama found the bug. She took it in her hand and said, through the window, “See. Not dangerous. No worry.”

We put our hands together in front of our hearts in prayer pose and both waved goodbye. There was no way in hell, we were opening that door up to hug Mama goodnight. The next morning, when we saw Papa, he was still laughing. We went to meet Pi-Pat on the beach and she was laughing. She had already heard the story and insisted we reenact it. The good new is, we were still laughing too!

Enjoy!

Love,

Tiff, Mags and The Jackajan (aka. Cicada:)