So there we were, trying to think up tenuous ways to squeeze the Bateman meme into another blog when disaster struck: a praying mantis flew in the window and began attacking.
First it swooped on Ravi, EU’s resident games-tester and benchmark-fapper. ‘Get behind a proxy!’ screamed the hirsute one, firing up his dual-boot Facebook machine. A Lithuanian VPN was no match for the mantis however, who had officially gone full potato.
Ravi may have been accustomed to kernel panic, but this was some next-level IRL panic of an entirely different nature. Not content with dive-bombing the hapless Ravi, the mantis then turned his attention to EU (that’s me) and began circling menacingly.
“Did someone mention my name?”
‘What do you want from us?’ screamed EU, addressing the mantis in the first person before later recounting the incident in the third person.
‘I want a chopper and a jet waiting at the airport,’ replied the tiny creature, tensing its talons in readiness to strike.
A quick word with EU’s finance department confirmed these demands to be outwith our emergency budget, but with the mantis threatening to destroy everything in sight – including Ravi’s prized ‘data centre’ – time was running out.
For some reason, SWAT ignored our entreaty for help with subduing a 2″ praying mantis, so we reluctantly called in a hostage negotiator – aka Ravi clad in an Oprah Winfrey mask. 16 tense hours later, and a concession of sorts was thrashed out: in exchange for diplomatic immunity within the EU embassy, the mantis would withdraw his threat to ransack the place and leave ‘spaghetti everywhere’. As part of the deal, however, we were forced to grant him basic mantis rights: food, water and internet access.
With an entente cordiale in place, the mantis jumped on Twitter and began trolling us OTI.
httpss://twitter.com/WhoDaMantis/status/238568914794184704
Tiring of his constant digs at the human race, we made a promise to the little bastard: if he would rein in the fury, we would grant him his very own EU blog – complete with a Ravi-produced video of the mantis destroying a wasp.
Sometimes, you can’t help yearning for the good old days, back when Ed Uncovered was a city review blog and serious drama was few and far between. Still, there’s no going back now – the Rubicon has been crossed. All hail the mantis.
