Oselle, some sympathy?
So on Tuesday night Rebecca and I were engaged in
an epic battle against a roach.
We've had a wee issue with roaches since we moved in. We had the exterminator come in after we saw the first three (meaning, we saw three roaches in the time it took for him to get there two days after sighting the first), but on Tuesday, the Cockroach that Ate Cincinnati crash-landed in my bookcase. It was THE GROSSEST THING EVER.
So, I'm lounging on the futon talking languidly, and Rebecca is eating cereal, when this huge godawful roach comes FLYING OUT OF THE CEILING VENT and crash-lands like an airplane in my bookcase. Now, I may be naive when it comes to the habits of cockroaches, never having had the pleasure of their company up until now, but I was not aware of the fact that cockroaches flew. But oh, they do. Children, they fly with gusto.
This roach - I would give him a name, but I fear it would make him too endearing - took refuge behind this tiny antique gas lamp I have on my shelf, between my CD player and some stacks of CDs. It crouched back there, taunting us with its creepy feelers and snickering at our panic.
I, of course, called Chad. Not because he could kill the roach for us, being 30 miles away, but for moral support. Rebecca managed to get everything off the shelf except the roach's little perch. (Meanwhile, I was armed with my Abnormal Psych book and breathing as though I were in lamaze.) I don't know how, but we managed to talk the roach into getting off the lamp. He got off the lamp. We moved the lamp. Sensing a trap, he immediately went for the floor. I took a swing at him, but he was too wily, and he vanished under the recliner and then, we think, went all the way under the carpet.
"You may have won this time," I said to the roach, "but we'll be back."
As it turned out, it was the roach who came back. I guess he was trying to make it back to the ceiling vent, but got a little lost. He crawled around near the ceiling for a while and then eluded us (and my psych book) once more by going behind my desk, where he remained, snickering wheezily, while we dismantled the shelf in my desk trying to find him.
We saw him again about twenty minutes later. He was crawling on the wall again, near my printer, still trying to find the Promised Land. (Buddy, you were closer every time.) We managed to corner him by the futon, and I whacked him again, but sadly my whack went amiss and I didn't actually kill him; just injured him. He slunk off to sulk and lick his wounds under my bookcase. I sat down at the desk, keeping vigil.
Sure enough, he reappeared, this time quite close to the vent. Now, this roach was so big you could actually see that one of his legs was injured. I'm telling you, it was disgusting. He was clinging to the wall with all his cockroachly might, but it wasn't enough and he started to fall. He caught himself mid-fall and FLEW - again, FLEW - over the futon and landed on it. He took refuge there for a while, in the side of it, teasing us by showing us his nasty little feelers and then hiding again. Rebecca and I stood there, me armed with Abnormal Psychology: An Introduction. We waited. And waited. We pulled the cushion off the futon. Still nothing.
At last, with great dramatic flair, the roach came down on the floor. He toyed with us for a while, first running this way, then that way, and eventually he had one last cackle at our expense when I slammed the book on the floor (screaming at the top of my lungs) and then jumped up and down on top of it. Fully expecting to find Crushed Roach beneath it, we picked the book up with barbeque tongs. Nothing.
As my fury attained new levels of vindictiveness, we realized that the roach was actually watching the fun from under the futon, where he was perched on a pillow. Much to his dismay, I'm sure, Rebecca pulled the pillow out with him still riding on it like a pharoah. (If his death hadn't been imminent I'm sure he would have loved it.) At this point he started skittering around again, apparently hoping to recapture the old magic, but my vitriol had improved my aim and, shrieking "DIE! DIE! DIE!" we achieved victory.
Rebecca, who can somehow stomach this, picked up the roach in a paper towel and we took him out with the rest of the trash. I expected a medal ceremony upon our return to the house, but instead there was just a kind of mournful buzzing in the air, like the sound of a family of roaches bewailing the loss of their kindred.
Shut up. It's the most exciting thing that happened to me in weeks, even if it wasn't very pleasant.
an epic battle against a roach.
We've had a wee issue with roaches since we moved in. We had the exterminator come in after we saw the first three (meaning, we saw three roaches in the time it took for him to get there two days after sighting the first), but on Tuesday, the Cockroach that Ate Cincinnati crash-landed in my bookcase. It was THE GROSSEST THING EVER.
So, I'm lounging on the futon talking languidly, and Rebecca is eating cereal, when this huge godawful roach comes FLYING OUT OF THE CEILING VENT and crash-lands like an airplane in my bookcase. Now, I may be naive when it comes to the habits of cockroaches, never having had the pleasure of their company up until now, but I was not aware of the fact that cockroaches flew. But oh, they do. Children, they fly with gusto.
This roach - I would give him a name, but I fear it would make him too endearing - took refuge behind this tiny antique gas lamp I have on my shelf, between my CD player and some stacks of CDs. It crouched back there, taunting us with its creepy feelers and snickering at our panic.
I, of course, called Chad. Not because he could kill the roach for us, being 30 miles away, but for moral support. Rebecca managed to get everything off the shelf except the roach's little perch. (Meanwhile, I was armed with my Abnormal Psych book and breathing as though I were in lamaze.) I don't know how, but we managed to talk the roach into getting off the lamp. He got off the lamp. We moved the lamp. Sensing a trap, he immediately went for the floor. I took a swing at him, but he was too wily, and he vanished under the recliner and then, we think, went all the way under the carpet.
"You may have won this time," I said to the roach, "but we'll be back."
As it turned out, it was the roach who came back. I guess he was trying to make it back to the ceiling vent, but got a little lost. He crawled around near the ceiling for a while and then eluded us (and my psych book) once more by going behind my desk, where he remained, snickering wheezily, while we dismantled the shelf in my desk trying to find him.
We saw him again about twenty minutes later. He was crawling on the wall again, near my printer, still trying to find the Promised Land. (Buddy, you were closer every time.) We managed to corner him by the futon, and I whacked him again, but sadly my whack went amiss and I didn't actually kill him; just injured him. He slunk off to sulk and lick his wounds under my bookcase. I sat down at the desk, keeping vigil.
Sure enough, he reappeared, this time quite close to the vent. Now, this roach was so big you could actually see that one of his legs was injured. I'm telling you, it was disgusting. He was clinging to the wall with all his cockroachly might, but it wasn't enough and he started to fall. He caught himself mid-fall and FLEW - again, FLEW - over the futon and landed on it. He took refuge there for a while, in the side of it, teasing us by showing us his nasty little feelers and then hiding again. Rebecca and I stood there, me armed with Abnormal Psychology: An Introduction. We waited. And waited. We pulled the cushion off the futon. Still nothing.
At last, with great dramatic flair, the roach came down on the floor. He toyed with us for a while, first running this way, then that way, and eventually he had one last cackle at our expense when I slammed the book on the floor (screaming at the top of my lungs) and then jumped up and down on top of it. Fully expecting to find Crushed Roach beneath it, we picked the book up with barbeque tongs. Nothing.
As my fury attained new levels of vindictiveness, we realized that the roach was actually watching the fun from under the futon, where he was perched on a pillow. Much to his dismay, I'm sure, Rebecca pulled the pillow out with him still riding on it like a pharoah. (If his death hadn't been imminent I'm sure he would have loved it.) At this point he started skittering around again, apparently hoping to recapture the old magic, but my vitriol had improved my aim and, shrieking "DIE! DIE! DIE!" we achieved victory.
Rebecca, who can somehow stomach this, picked up the roach in a paper towel and we took him out with the rest of the trash. I expected a medal ceremony upon our return to the house, but instead there was just a kind of mournful buzzing in the air, like the sound of a family of roaches bewailing the loss of their kindred.
Shut up. It's the most exciting thing that happened to me in weeks, even if it wasn't very pleasant.