A peace had finally fallen upon my apartment here in Houston. I was no longer tearing apart my entire bathroom before taking a shower every morning. The giant can of RAID was placed back under my kitchen sink and I was starting to feel like me again. After the last cockroach episode, it was nice to finally stop living in fear.
The other night I came home and decided to tidy up a bit before company came by. I vacuumed, dusted, washed some clothes and did the little things I'd been eying all week but couldn't stop to do. When I was finally finished I was ready for a long hot shower to wash away the day and the smell of Lysol on my skin.
You see where this is going....
No sooner had I pushed back my lavender shower curtain did I see it hovering above me like Satan's own diabolical pet. This one was ENORMOUS. At least 3 inches long with a scowl I swear I could see with my own little eyes. I looked at him, he looked at me. There I was once again, terrified in my own bathroom wearing my birthday suit frozen from the sheer idea of having another cockroach invasion.
I bolted out of the bathroom. Again I was screaming bloody murder as I ran through my entire apartment. Again I grabbed my boobs as the deathly sounds of terror came spilling out like a war horn.
I ran back to the bathroom and stood just outside the door, peering in while whimpering, tears now streaming down my cheeks. "Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhh" was all I could manage to say in a desperate whisper.
There it was above my shower, not caring about the state of panic he had thrown me into. Then I realized, I was actually panicking. This was no normal reaction. I was shaking uncontrollably, my head was getting light, my limbs were cold and numb and suddenly my heart felt like it was going to explode. DAMN IT, I thought to myself....I'm having a fucking panic attack!! I tried to breathe calmly, empty my mind and think of a safe place. There I was, with my hands in the air (a trick I use to keep them from going numb) telling myself that I was in the shoe department of Barney's New York (one of my safe places).
After catching my breath and still not taking my eyes off the disgusting creature in my bathroom, I ran to the kitchen and got my handy-dandy bottle of bug spray. I let loose on that thing with the vengeance of a disgruntled housewife. I screamed, "Die! Die! Die!" as it flew from the wall to my shower curtain and somehow managed to retract inside itself, shrinking it's body in half and becoming a fat bug ball glistening in the rain of my constant spray of poison. It was the most disgusting thing I'd ever seen before my eyes. It was clinging from my shower curtain. No signs of life, no signs of death....just this ambiguous presence. My gaze still firmly on the roach I felt around the carpet for my pants, then my tank top...then my cell phone.
I called my friend who was on his way to my house. "Ho...how close are you to my house?"
"Like 30 or 45 minutes...why?"
"Remember when that roach ....there's a roach...I have a...a...a...there's a thing in my bathroom."
He laughed.
"Well kill it..." I love it how people who don't have these fears of insects or spiders make little helpful suggestions like that. How easy it must be to live in their world without fear of giant cockroaches that might possibly crawl into your bed at night and lay eggs in your hair.
"I sprayed it...but I don't know if it's dead."
"Well spray it some more then."
"I ran out."
After hanging up with Mr. Helpful, I called my other friend...who could help me even less being that he lives in California. At least he shared in my disgust.
"Eeeeeeeew," he said coughing back the image I'd placed in his head. "That’s nasty, man....kill that mufucka!!"
"It's LOOKING AT ME!!" I shouted falling back into panic.
A half hour later, I'd become a ball of submission on the floor outside my bathroom, still staring at the roach who I'd now named Ernie, when my friend finally knocked on my door. He stepped inside, put his Jack in the Box bag down on the kitchen counter, drew two sheets of paper towel and stepped into the bathroom. He admittedly agreed the sucker was pretty huge, then calmly grabbed it in the paper towel (a crunching sound was heard) and flushed it down the toilet. He washed his hands, and then looked at me as if I were some kind of insane person.
Still, days later as I sit relaying this horrific story to you all, a part of me can’t help but feel a little sad for Ernie...having to die like that while being screamed at by a naked black girl grabbing her boobs in terror. May he rest in peace.
(©2009 Lotus B.)
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