It is the cockroach, famous for its ability to terrify even the manliest of men and the womanliest of women. We hear about their infestations in tiny New York apartment kitchens, of the horrors of roach bombing. Yet, thankfully, in most parts of the country, it's unlikely that you will run into these nasties on a regular basis.
In the south, though, these rare run-ins are made infinitely worse. You see, in the south we have mutant cockroaches that we call palmetto bugs or water bugs. Same bug, but bigger, faster, and not afraid of humans.
Great.
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| *Shudders* |
Last night at about midnight, I was curled up in bed thoroughly absorbed in Chuck Palahniuk's new collection of short stories. Suddenly, I heard a violent rustling in the corner near my dresser. Fergie heard it too and leapt off of my shelf to go investigate. I sort of half sat up, peeked over, and saw a crumpled up receipt (one of the best non-toy cat toys) moving on what seemed to be its own accord.
I got a sinking feeling in my chest because deep down I knew what was crawling around in that receipt. I've lived in this godforsaken bug-infested area of the country long enough to know that the only thing that could make that much noise in a piece of paper was one of the south's own freakishly large cockroaches.
Fergie was super into it—a toy that moves on its own, wow!—but I knew he would want to play with it for a while before he killed it. I had to take matters into my own hands.
I began moving everything out from underneath my dresser (where I had been storing all of my shoes while I've been home. Yes, I shook them all out). I grabbed one of my neon pink sneakers, the thickest-soled shoes I own, and prepared myself for a grade-A smushing.
The stupid cat kept freaking out the roach with his attempts to play, though, so the roach was running around like crazy. I took a moment to gently push Fergie out of the way so I could better reach the bug, and the roach saw its exit and ran.
Directly toward me.
And crawled over my leg.
You know, I used to have this piercing horror-movie-level shriek when I was a kid. It was truly impressive. My parents have a wealth of stories involving my public tantrum throwing involving these shrieks (I was not the most fun kid to be around). As I grew up, I lost my ability to do these high-pitched shrill shrieks and developed a lower, throaty, hoarser scream that is also pretty cool and came into great use when I was in Dracula, but wasn't of the same caliber as the shrieks of my childhood hay-day.
Last night, I rediscovered the child shriek. Man did I fucking SCREAM. I absolutely lost my marbles. I was sobbing like a bachelorette that didn't get a rose. The stupid roach ran over my leg and under my bed and found shelter beneath my jewelry bag that was lying on the floor. It was at this point that I called in the big guns.
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| The big guns, above left |
The large man in that picture is my (younger) brother. He is 6'2" and BROAD and STRONG and the greatest 100% human 0% chemical additives bug-fighting weapon you will ever meet. Bless his heart, the kid made it upstairs and into my room at warp speed because when I called him I was hysterical, and he thought that something actually life-threatening had happened.
He hunted down the roach (which had scurried back across my room while I was on the phone with him, prompting more shrieks), smushed it as I had intended to with no interruption from Fergie, and flushed that motherf*cker down the toilet. He then sat with me for about an hour and a half while my body slowly relinquished panic mode.
Then I removed all non-essential items from my room to lower the number of potential roach hiding places, re-checked all corners, curled up in a tiny ball in the middle of my bed, and fell asleep having dreams about being chased by hoards of roaches.
Someone should seriously film my life.
This is my worst nightmare.
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