This bloke and his family were on holiday in the States and went to
Mexico for a week. As he is an avid cactus fan he bought a rare and
expensive cactus there, it was about a metre high and cost about $500
Aus. He got it home and the customs people were none too impressed so
they said it must stay in quarantine for 3 months, cost - $800 or so.
He finally got his cactus home and planted it in his backyard where
over time it grew to about 2 metres or so in height. One evening after
a beautiful warm spring day he was out watering his garden and thought
he might give the cactus a light spray. This he did and was amazed to
see the plant shiver all over, he gave it another light spray and it
shivered and shook again. All its arms moved.
He was puzzled so he rang the council who put him on to the state
gardens. After a few transfers he got the states foremost cactus
expert who asked him many pointed questions, how tall is it, how tall
was it when you got it, has it grown well, has it flowered, what type
of spines etc etc. Finally he asked a most disturbing question, "is
your family in the house?". The guy answered yes, the cactus expert
said get them out of the house NOW, get on to the front nature strip
and wait for me, I will be there in 15 minutes.
Ten minutes later, 2 fire trucks, two cop cars and an ambulance came
screaming around the corner at the end of the street and stopped out
the front of the house. A fireman got out and came up to him, " are
you the guy with the cactus?". I am he said. The fireman turns to the
truck and says 'Come on Dave'. A guy jumps out of the fire truck
wearing what looks like a space suit, a breathing cylinder and mask
attached and what looks like a scuba backpack on with a large hose
attached. 'Stay here,' says the first fireman, and they both headed
for the backyard.
This was too much for the bloke so he ran around after them and found
the guy in the space suit was torching his prize cactus with a
flamethrower, he sprayed it up and down with this huge flame which
fried everything within a ten metre radius of the cactus, caught fire
to the back fence and set off the neighbors trees as well. The guy of
course was having kittens, what the $%^& is going on etc etc, after
about ten minutes the flame thrower man stopped, his cactus stood
there smoking and spitting, half the fence was gone, his garden was
entirely rooted.
Just then the cactus expert appears and laid a calming hand on the
guys shoulder. "What the hell is going on?" says the bloke, 'let me
show you' says the cactus man. He went over to the cactus and picked
away at a crusty bit of it, it was almost entirely hollow and filled
with these tiger striped bird eating tarantula spiders, about the size
of two hands spans. The story was that this type of spider lays eggs
in this type of cactus and they hatch and live in it as it and they
grow to full size. When they are all grown to full size they release
themselves, the cactus just explodes and about 150 of these plate size
tiger striped hairy spiders are flung from it, dispersing everywhere
of course. They had been just ready to pop, can you imagine???
The aftermath was that his house and the two houses adjoining on each
side had to be vacated and fumigated and sealed up for two weeks,
yellow police tape was put up outside the whole area and no one was
allowed in for two weeks, then they gave the all clear and they could
move back in.
|
