La Cucaracha

I woke my husband up from a sound sleep sometime after midnight last night, certain that I was going to get yelled at. Oddly enough, I didn't. He was surprisingly calm when I informed him that he was needed in the bathroom immediately.

I had been asleep for at least an hour when I woke up and realized I drank way too much water before bed, and had to drag myself to the bathroom. I was only half awake, and I remember thinking that it was going to be so nice to crawl back in bed again. This time change has totally screwed me up, so I'm not getting enough sleep lately.

Just as I flushed, I noticed something on the bathroom door. It was a ROACH! A nasty, six-inch long ROACH! Don't you tell me it wasn't that big! I know what I saw. And anyway, this is my story, and I'll make my bugs as large as I want to!

I have mentioned before that I have an extreme, irrational fear of roaches. Please don't email me to inform me that they cannot hurt me. I know this. I don't care. They are ugly. I can't be in the same room with one. I can't even kill them because I can't get close enough. If I do manage to sneak up on one with a can of Raid, I am motivated by the simple fact that I have to be certain that the little critter doesn't get away, only to pounce on me later. I want him DEAD! To be honest, I can't even dispose of the dead ones! I am absolutely not picking one up, even with a handful of paper towels. I can't sweep them out the door, because their disgusting little body parts always fall off and get left behind. EWWW! Once I tried to vacuum one up, but I can't stand to even hear the noise it makes as they get sucked up into the vacuum cleaner. Not to mention, who is going to clean the dead roach body out of there?! And do they ever really DIE anyway? You can practically mutilate one, and 2 weeks later the legs are still twitching! REPULSIVE creatures, I tell you!

So, I was instantly jolted wide awake, and I had to run past this abhorrent, foot-long insect just to get out of the bathroom. I bolted for the kitchen to get the bug spray. When I got back to the bathroom, the damn thing was trying to hide from me. He was on his way behind the door, obviously planning to jump out at me later. I managed to spray him and run. You must run, because you never know when a pissed off roach will decide to take flight! Ewww, the very thought of that makes me shiver! And they don't just fly. They fly at you! At least they do when it's me.

So I ran. And then I crept back to peek into the bathroom, hoping to see a dying bug on the floor. NO SUCH LUCK! I saw his reflection in the mirror, and he was on the wall right above the door! Did I miss him with the spray? He still looked pretty healthy! Do you realize what this means? There was no way for me to spray him! I would have to enter the bathroom to aim at him, and risk being trapped in there with him! NOW WHAT?!

That's when I decided to wake my peacefully sleeping husband, who was shockingly pleasant when he headed for the bathroom. But really, why shouldn't he enjoy this? Don't men want to feel powerful? Shouldn't he get some kind of male ego boost, knowing that he is rescuing me from a killer, three-foot long monster bug?

At least he wasn't cursing, so what more could I ask for? There was only one problem. When he got there, he couldn't find my adversary! The loathsome insect had hidden yet again, obviously plotting some kind of assault on me. Meanwhile, my husband is insisting that there is no roach in our bathroom! "I don't know what to tell you. He's not here."

Oh, no, under no circumstances is he going back to bed without finding this bug! No way was I going to attempt to sleep with that thing still alive in my house.

I guess this is rather anticlimactic, but he did find the five-foot long beast in the shower a few minutes later. How he could have missed something that large, I have no idea. He killed it, and flushed it down the toilet.

But wait. I never actually saw this for myself. Maybe he was just telling me he found it, so I would leave him alone! That hideous creature could still be there somewhere, scheming, conniving, possibly even conspiring with other roaches as to how he will terrorize me tonight!

On his way back to bed, my hubby did have one comment for me. "You really need to get over this. It's ridiculous."

But who cares what he thinks? He's just a man.

(Notice that I did not post a picture of a roach to go alone with this story. I can't even stand to look at them.)