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The ParkTown Prawn
Have you EVER seen anything like it? Why it even got given the name “prawn” is beyond me, quite frankly, put me off prawns for a long time. I lived in a house for just under a year where these “beasts” came into the house quite regularly…. I used to hate working in the garden because of them. I mean there you are digging away, tidying, laying new flower beds, etc…. when “wham” one (or even two or three) of these monsters leap out, and boy can they jump? Let me tell you about the first time I came across these horrors. I live in a house in Johannesburg, had never seen these before, but had heard about them (only a little though). This was back in 1987/88… I’d just been shopping with the kids, came home and went to park the car when I saw it. It was HUGE! Climbing up along side the wall (corner of the garage and adjacent bedroom)… of course it was summer, very hot … so all windows were opened too. Anyhow, didn’t think much about it, looked at it as I went into the garage, but then offloaded the car and went in to the kitchen (through the back entrance). Got busy in the kitchen and didn’t give it another thought. Busy putting my shopping away, I turned around to go to the fridge when I see this “thing” crawling along my passage, I thought “you cheeky thing, get out of here”… needless to say that there started my vendetta against the beasts. I went and got hold of the insecticide (every household in South Africa always has the strongest available, mainly for roaches), went back to find the “thing”… it had gone back to the room where it had come in from…. There it was on the carpet in the middle of the room… so I thought “hahaha… got you now!” and proceeded to spray this “insect”…. Well, the shock I got! It started jumping like mad, and jumping high too, spitting and spraying this awful black smelly muck… man, was I angry? After almost emptying out the entire can of insecticide on this bug, I went back to the kitchen believing that after the adrenalin had run its course through the (distressed) insect, it would then crawl and hide to die. Well, after some time (can’t remember exactly how long), probably a couple of hours, again I was busy in the kitchen when I spotted this bug, trying once again to cross over into our lounge… could not believe it. It looked like the poison had not touched it one bit…. So I decided I was not going to lose this battle, got hold of an empty baby food jar, managed to get this bug in it (can’t remember how I did that either)… I then filled the jar up again with more insecticide and put the lid on. This monster lived for another 24 hours (at least it looked like it), its antennae were still moving… what a performance. I’ve hated them ever since. Thing is, they get into everything, boots, trainers, shoes… it’s so annoying, because they come and invade your space and then they spit and spray at you when you want to just carry on doing your normal daily routine… grrrrr! Oh well, that’s why I’m glad I’m not in South Africa any more. I hope they never manage to make an appearance in UK. To me they’re like a roach gone wrong, give me the same repulsive feeling!
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Contributor's Note
Monsters, Fiends, Ogres, or Parktown Prawns this regular but seldom welcome visitor to many suburban gardens in South Africa has been called a varied assortment of names, however, all with one thing in common, none of these terms are ever complementary.
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Parktown Prawn - Wikipedia
| Parktown Prawn - The Suburban Alien
 
The Male Beast
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May, 2012
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