Day 245: New Battle, Same War

We went to empty out my storage unit today and we found some little friends that had taken up shelter in one of my boxes...oh wait, did I say friends? I meant fiends!

I have a long history full of anxiety, frustration, and fear with these little monsters. When I was 14 I actually wrote an e-mail to my sister about a small encounter with a kamikaze cockroach that turned into a bit of a crisis situation.

Uncle Joe, this is for you:

So I was talking to mom on the phone today and I was having my usual conversation with her when I saw it. I was just looking around Daniel’s room, and my gaze landed on a pile of his shorts, which looked as if they had just been washed, and were neatly folded in a pile on the floor, but at the zipper of one pair of khaki shorts there was this stain. I couldn’t tell if it was ketchup or something else. Finding myself somewhat intrigued, I put on my glasses for a closer examination, sitting on Daniel’s bed, I leaned forward for a better inspection of this spot. I was still talking to mom on the phone while all this was happening and in the middle of a sentence, I just screamed, because that is when I realized that it was no spot but the biggest, largest, HUGEST ROACH that I have EVER seen. The thing had to be over two inches long and ever worse, it was starring at me.

With our father being in pest control and having been educated by him in the classifying and extermination of such pests, I did what any rationally thinking person would do; I cried like a baby, begged my mom to come home to kill it, and asked her to bring daddy home with her. Of course our lovely mother was hysterically laughing by this time and she exclaimed for all in her little shop to hear, that she had the wimpiest kids on the planet. I then proceeded to tell her that this was what I had a daddy for and I demanded that he drop whatever he was doing, risk losing his job, and come home to dispose of the infidel.

Dearest Wendy, being the practical one, told me to get the bug spray, which would render the animal motionless as it died an agonizing death. Gung-ho, I jumped up to fetch this miracle spray and came face to face with Lucy, Daniel’s beloved bird. This spray would harm Lucy and could possible kill her…so to use it I had to remove Lucy from the room. This was no easy feat because Lucy hates two things in this world: 1) getting out of her cage and 2) me. So, I opened the cage and barely put my hand inside to gently coax Lucy to come out. Lucy responded by flapping her wings frantically and jumping around the cage, catching her wing in a crevice and injuring herself in all of the commotion.

Sadly, I closed her cage and decided to take on the creature myself, one on one. I grabbed the only weapons necessary for such an endeavor; my hiking boots (which I tucked my pant legs into in case the creature decided to fly) and a broom. Mockingly, it stared at me for several minutes like a western showdown as I held the broom up like a warrior would hold a sword. Then the beast charged straight at me and I screamed out a war cry as I beat it as hard as I could with the broom. To my terror, the broom did not phase the demon and no matter how hard I hit the thing, it just scurried around the floor.

Finally it retreated, taking shelter under a Bass Pro Shop shopping bag. At this point, I was crying because I had no defense against a creature so vile and cunning. Still on the other end of the phone, mom was laughing about the fact that I was literally crying. In a final effort to destroy the beast, I tightened the laces on my boots, and tried to collect myself for the last battle. I then stomped the bag as hard as I could and pounded it with the broom and an old mop handle that I managed to find. During this battle, I used the broom and mop handle to get the roach inside the bag. Once I had accomplished this, I used the mop handle to carry the bag outside, where I put it on a chair and left it. I don’t know what was originally in the bag or if Daniel needed any of it, but it was outside with a BEWARE of ROACH sign on it for him to find when he got home that day.

I still don’t know why mom originally called but we ended our conversation with her still laughing at me and the entire store in hysterics about my little fit. Despite everything I am proud of myself because even though I injured a bird and destroyed whatever was in that Bass Pro Shop bag, at least there is no longer a roach in the house.