Creepy Water-Treading Animals

Anyone who knows me knows I have strange tastes in pets, animals and insects. As far as insects go my favourites have always been preying mantises and wetas. Wetas I like so long as I don't have to touch them (because they are violent, grumpy little buggers and will take you on even if you are a million times bigger and holding an axe.) But when I was a kid I had a pet mantis for about a month that I named Burt. Burt was possibly a strange pet for a 'sweet' little girl who would never consider cruelty to anything, including bugs. I used to catch flies for him in the morning and then watch innocently as he ripped the body parts slowly off his live wriggling victim, munching away enjoying his meal completely unaffected by the writhing creature trapped in his vice-like grip. (Who would guess that I would grow up to have favourite songs like Mein Teil!) Burt must have been a real member of the family just like the cats because to this day if anyone in my family sees a preying mantis out goes the cry “Look! There's a Burt!”

Last year I had a pet weta for a while who lived outside on the rose bush underneath my office window. I met him when I went to put the clothes in the dryer one day and he was stuck to the door and wouldn't get out of the way. I called him Rover. I called him Rover because he's a big bugger. If you want an idea how big he made a big clunk as he landed on the ground when I flicked him off the door – with a spade. He looks like you should put a studded collar and lead on him and provide him with a kennel for a pit bull. I haven't seen Rover for a while though so maybe an extremely large bird ate him. I haven't seen any Moa's in the garden lately but whatever ate him must have been at least that big.

Aside from Rovers and Burts the other animals I like are lizards and bats. Lizards are easy to come by. You can buy one from the pet store that will grow to the length of your arm. (Probably also looks good in a studded dog collar). I cuddled one once in the local pet store and was surprised how much personality it had. Bats unfortunately you have to go to the zoo for where they just hang upside down and glare at you but you can't cuddle them, which might be a good thing because I heard that they smell bad. I mean otters look cuddly too until you go near them and then it's like “Holy Hell – who forgot to empty the rubbish bins?!” My other favourite animal is Indonesia's Komodo Dragon – a type of 5 foot monitor lizard that drools poisonous saliva and eats small children and livestock. OK, I draw the line at wanting to cuddle one of these! But they look cool.

Anyway what prompted this blog wasn't mantises, wetas, lizards or dragons but rats. And of course I think these are cuddly and cute as well. A friend of mine has several as pets and they are rather sweet. But at the same time these guys are a pain if you get them in your roof. There was an ad on TV for a humane pest control unit that just scares the rats away. (Plug In Pest Free) I like this idea because I hate killing stuff and it's available from my favourite organic store – IE Produce. These guys had some really interesting facts about rats on their site that I didn't know about.

• One pair of rats and their offspring can produce 15,000 rats yearly.
• Rats eat enough grain annually to fill a freight train 3,000 miles long.
• Rats can gnaw through metal, lead pipes, and cinder blocks.
• A rat can squeeze through a hole no larger then a 50 cent piece (US not NZ!)
• Rats can survive being flushed down a toilet.
• A rat's teeth will grow from 4-6 inches per year.
• A rat can swim one half mile and tread water for three days.
• A rat can jump off a five-story building unhurt.

OK, so if you are not like me and you are trying to get rid of someone's pet rat rather than cuddle it - flushing it down the loo, throwing it of the Sky Tower or paddling out into the middle of the harbour in a kayak to drop it off at it's new “home” is probably not going to cut the mustard. These facts are pretty impressive. I think the only thing that can beat this is a cockroach which can reassemble itself with more legs than it started with after you've squashed it three times and even after that go on to survive a nuclear explosion.

Perhaps the only pest more difficult to get rid of than this is “Hillin Cluck” (say fast in a Rove voice and it will all make sense!)

The Humans are Dead

I am writing this in response to The Ambling Rambler's blog today Are Customer Service People Dense? (well worth the read) since I had a similarly stupid experience today with my mobile phone service provider. I don't want to post their actual name here so for this blog let's just call them “V-Mobile”.

I've been a V-Mobile customer for years. I really like them. They give fantastic service and have good plans and products. However, one thing I never counted on was the stupidity of their automated phone system.

I needed to give them a call today because I had a simple question about my plan. Logically I figured this would simply involve looking up their phone number and talking to a Customer Service Person. Since they have to handle a large number of calls around the country I imagined that I might get a short automated message followed by “If you would like to speak to a Customer Service Person press 0” followed by “Hello” from a human. Similar to the Woosh system which is great. You pretty much get the option to talk to a human from the word go.

But no. Instead I got their idiotic phone system which took me five goes at to actually find a human to talk to. My last two machine conversations went something like this (although this is MUCH shorter and less complicated because there is no way I can remember verbatim every insane level they programmed into this thing!):

V-Mobile Phone System: “Welcome to V-Mobile. For Prepay press 1, for On Account press 2, for information on number portability press 3”

Me: OK no option for a human so I press 2 for On Account since I have one. So far so good.

VPS: “Thank you for calling V-Mobile. We have not been able to recognise your mobile number. (Well of course you haven't - I haven't been asked to put it in yet!) To allow us to offer you better service please enter your mobile number now. If you do not have this number press #”

Me: I enter my number

VPS: “Please enter you mobile phone activation number”

Me: WTF!!!! This is the number you unlock the phone with when you first get it. I got my phone 3 years ago. There is no way I have any clue what it is now! But there is no way to go further without it so I hang up and try again and this time skipping past the part where you put in your mobile number. So it continues...

VSP: “Welcome to V-Mobile” For Prepay press 1, etc etc etc blah blah (up to the point I was up to before except I select # to skip the mobile phone number) And then:

VSP: "Welcome to V-Mobile"

Me: OK, got it the first time. I thought I was there already!

VSP: “The time is 3.11pm”

Me: Whoop-tee-doo. You don't say! I have my own watch and don't need to be told this but perhaps they could further waste my time by adding a weather report and a news update and any other crap I don't need to be doing right now.

VSP: “For technical support for your iphone 3G blah blah blah ..... please hang up and call some other number. For info on getting an iphone 3G blah blah blah... call yet some other number”

Me: Great I don't have one of those and don't want one either but if the lucky people who do have one get a special number to call great. Good to know. I am now informed should I ever get one. Thanks for the extra advertising.

VSP: “For account information press 1, for Global Roaming press 2, for some other Family offer press 3, TO SPEAK TO A CUSTOMER SERVICE PERSON PRESS 0”

Me: Yes! Finally! Thank you God! I press 0

VSP: “If you would like to speak to a customer service person press 1”

Me: WTF! Didn't it register the first time? Maybe they should reword it to “Are you really really REALLY sure without any doubt you really want to speak to a Customer Service Person?”

VSP: “Thank you for choosing to speak to a Customer Service Person”

Me: GET TO THE FUCKING POINT!!!!!!!! I don't want to be thanked for my choice. I want to speak to someone. Preferably this century.

VSP: “To allow us to offer you better service we need to validate your identity. Please enter your mobile number...”

Me: Fuck not this again. Thankfully there is an option to continue on to speak to someone without entering the dreaded activation number. I FINALLY get a human. This is after about half an hour of pressing buttons. And what do I get from the human? First before he can answer my simple question I have to be interrogated for more information...

“What is your full name?
What is your birthday?
Where do you live?
What is your mobile number?
WHAT IS YOUR ACTIVATION NUMBER!”

Holy hell. All for a simple 2 second question. What ever happened to the type of Client Service where a friendly person answered the phone and was cheerfully helpful? Also I hate to think what happens if you are a poor unfortunate non-V-Mobile potential customer looking to phone up, heaven forbid without an activation number, to simply find out something before signing up!