Saturday, Be jatuh pokok papaya!
Haiiii, I would like to say it was a “tiat not yet broken” [read: “tak patah tiat”]. But really, it was a tiat not even spoken. Tak sempat! Kisahnya, Be had been thinking and planning to petik the papaya on the tree belakang rumah for almost a week. Came Saturday, it had become too tempting for him. So, off he went in socks and runners, a ladder on one shoulder, ready to mempertahankan his papaya from the preying eyes of the squirrels sekelian!
I was watching from the kitchen door, with Kitreena busy melangau in my ears, Mommy this, Mommy that, Mommy Mommy this and that! As Be was going up to the highest point, about 10ft off the ground, he shook the ladder that was against the papaya bark (it’s an old old old papaya tree yang dah bercabang tiga already!) He did so to see if it was safer for him to go higher and to see if the strength of the bark would support the weight – his and the ladder’s.
I opened my mouth to warn Be not to stay up against the bark too long and to stop shaking it. “Babe, don’t shhh….!” And it was then that the brittle bark broke into three pieces! The ladder terjungkit like a see-saw – the base in our backyard, and the top in our neighbor’s. Be fell into the neighbor’s yard, luckily slowly. I held myself from saying anything to give him some time to realize that he just fell off the papaya tree, 10ft high! (In other words, I was speechlessly shocked and scared!)
There were so many fortunate things surrounding the drama, withal. It could very well have been a ‘sudah jatuh ditimpa tangga’ scene. Or Be could have fallen on the sharp rocks that were in the neighbor’s yard. Or even more seriau, there was a metal rod within an inch or two away from where Be had fallen, that could have poked through his chest! For God’s sake, excuse my ghoulish thoughts!
After rubbing his chest, neck, shoulders and arms…Be said, “Blasted papaya! But lucky me! Someone must have been watching over me.” Be escaped with only soreness on his left elbow and a bloody deep scratch on his right shin. Kitreena, being a drama queen, was crying in the background – as she got scared and overly worried to have seen Daddy fall.
I kicked myself for assuming that Be knew what he was doing. While he might have taken all the safety aspects under consideration, he admitted it later that he knew squat about papaya trees. They are not even trees, kalau ikutkan. Just an overgrown herb-type plant. Aren’t they? The ‘bark’ was not only brittle, it was hollow. So, the moral of the story is…bark all you want, but at the right tree, please.
Sunday was a Satay Kajang Day for us all.
Yummy the satay was. But a friend who joined us that day had a yummier story. And that is to be blogged about another day.
Questa è Enida 