Oh, Roaches

I made a pretty profound statement last night. I said, “I know that all things have a place in the circle of life, but I think that Noah could have left behind the two roaches.”

I am not a fan of roaches. They didn't bother me so much until I moved to SC and had one fly at my head. I hit it with a shoe, sprayed it with roach spray, hit it again, sprayed it again, and the thing still wouldn't die. It kept fighting for life--and flew at my head. I squealed like a girl! And then it ran for cover, not to be seen until a few days later, dead. That night, I dreamed that a giant roach like the one on the Orkin commercials came to visit me at my house.

The next time I saw a roach, it was struggling to get out of a floor lamp in my apartment. The lamp has a cone shaped top and the roach couldn't get enough traction to climb out. I don't know if his wings weren't working or what, but he couldn't get out, and I didn't want to risk moving the lamp and him flying at my head, so I just left him there. I figured that I'd let him bake in the heat and hope that he felt like he was on the beach getting a roach tan. I left my lamp on all night and when I woke up the next morning, the roach was fully in-tact but completely dead. I had baked him into a roach specimen. He's actually still there--preserved--antenna and all. I figure he serves as an example to other roaches who want to come into my apartment.

Although...it doesn't really work. One night a few weeks ago, I got up to use the bathroom in the middle of the night. It's what happens to you when you get older. In my state of blind sleepiness, I looked at the wall beside me and noticed a roach staring at me. He was about two inches away from my head. For a moment, I was paralyzed with eek-i-ness. I wanted to get up and leave immediately, but I didn't want to water the apartment. So I sat there, not breathing, until I was finished, and then bolted off of the toilet. The first thing I did was get my glasses. Then I got a sturdy shoe. Then I went back into the bathroom and stared at the roach while flashbacks of his ancestor flying at my head made me squirm. I carefully considered the angle at which I needed to hit the roach in order to ensure that he did not get away. I practiced my approach from a few different angles while considering the virtues of roach spray until I finally decided on an approach and attacked. Sure enough, the ugly stubborn creature got away after the first blow, but I quickly reacted, letting out a little scream, and squished him into pieces. Part of me felt bad for hurting him so badly, but the thought of him flying at my head turned me into a savage roach killer. I cleaned up the carnage, flushed it down the toilet, and went back to bad, somewhat afraid that the roach would reform himself and come back to haunt me.

And then last night...I saw yet another roach scurry across my floor. Without hesitation, I slipped on a sandal, calmly walked over, and stepped on it. It ran away. I ran after it. And then it was dead. As I cleaned up its remains, I thought to myself, "Why do we need roaches? Really. What eats them? What purpose do they serve? Why do the ones in SC have to fly at your head? And why do they have a roach exhibit at the zoo? It's disgusting!"

I wrote a poem once entitled, "The Life of a Roach Right Before Death." I'll try to remember to post it sometime. It's currently handwritten in one of my earliest books of poems. It's a high school writing that must have been a prophetic poem about the encounters that I would have with roaches throughout my life. Don't worry. My apartment is clean. It's not a breeding ground for roaches and disease. Roaches just decide to come in sometimes when I open the door or when they wander into an air shaft or when they think I need some bedtime entertainment...or when I'm at Office Depot in Lumberton and they run across my foot.

What about you? What is your roach story?