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Ceremonial first creepy-crawly sighting

I think now I’m truly officially a homeowner.

I was awakened a few minutes ago by the sound of something pitter-pattering across the hardwood floor.  I had my suspicions, so I turned on the light and sure enough, there it was: a cockroach.

Now, a little background about me.  I’m terrified of roaches.  My top five fears, in order goes something like this:

  1. Nuclear armageddon
  2. Death by asfixiation after being buried alive
  3. Roaches
  4. Complete global economic meltdown resulting in return to hunting and gathering society
  5. Destruction of the universe via rogue science experiment

I had to summon all my courage to go to my closet for a shoe with which to try to take care of the problem.  It would be my luck that my adversary would foresee my manuevre, and run over near my shoes.  The roach was clearly saying, “You have to get past me first.”

Luckily for me, I had forgotten to put my sandals with the rest of my shoes.  I grabbed one and methodically stalked my prey, waiting to strike until he was away from areas where he could hide and potentially escape.

I attacked with a single, potent strike, and felled my foe.

That is, of course, the easy part — cleanup is even more challenging.  I had to gather all my fortitude again, and made a makeshift broom and dustpan out of some junk mail sitting on my desk.  (But not until I did some extra prodding, to make sure there would be no surprises from a playing-possum counter-manuevre from the roach.)

A flush of the toilet was the sound of official victory.  I had handled the first roach situation in my house, and did it without screaming once and without calling for my roommate Mike for tactical backup.

Wed April 23rd, 2008 4:14 am

Filed under Life

2 comments

  1. Zach said:
    April 23rd, 2008 1:22 pm

    I can relate. One night at my dad’s house, I spotted a wolf spider the size of a small hamburger bun sprint across the kitchen floor. Spiders are for me, what roaches are for you: they freak me out.

    So I run to the hall closet to grab a mop bucket and a piece of cardboard (?!) and make my way back to the kitchen. The spider was motionless, so I dropped the bucket on top of it and slid the cardboard underneath to trap it. Instead of turning the bucket over and letting the spider fall out onto the grass outside, I just threw everything outside and waited until the next day to pick it up.

    So yeah … you’re not alone.

  2. Jenn Lobb said:
    June 3rd, 2008 1:27 pm

    Amen to that brother. I highly recommend Dow Disinfecting Bathroom Cleaner for this problem. Just spray it on, wait a few seconds to be sure it’s good and dead, meanwhile the foam expands and covers the bug (so you don’t have to watch the death throes), and then you just wipe it up–disinfecting the floor at the same time.

    It works wasps and on flying roaches too; it weighs them down and they drop like rocks. :)

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