You know, although I have been looking forward to summer and enjoying the anticipation of those warm clear mornings where you can hear the doves cooing and the cicadas rattling and the taste of a cold beer in the evening and the smell of freshly washed clothes that dry in half an hour in the sun, there is one thing about winter that I would gladly endure the cold and damp for all year: NO c-o-c-k-r-o-a-c-h-e-s.
I don’t mind spiders, worms, caterpillars, leeches, millipedes, centipedes, scorpions, snakes, rats, mosquitoes, ants, grasshoppers, beetles, stick insects… but let there be a single solitary cockroach in the house, and I cower in a corner run screaming from the room. (M can attest to this.)
In winter the cockroach legions must go on a holiday to warmer climates or something, because there just aren’t any around. As soon as it warms up, things change. [key ominous background music] They return! We’ll probably start getting Visitations every other night or so…
For the past week I have been forgoing wearing socks around the house as it is getting warmer and I do love the feel of the ground under my feet. Maybe you can guess the rest? I went into the kitchen this morning, gave Baubles the Cat her morning fresh water, put the kettle on for my tea, and CRUNCH I stepped on something. Even while all my hair stood on end I hoped against hope that it was just a piece of cabbage dropped and unnoticed from my dinner prep the night before. I stepped off, looked down, and there It lay on its back, legs wriggling ferociously in the air. Trying not to scream, I ran into the bathroom and turned a tap on and scrubbed my foot for a good five minutes. Even now the traumatised nerves in my foot tingle when I let myself think about It.
Because The Creature was belly up and temporarily unable to run at me, I got the fly spray and sprayed It, brandishing the can like a sword. It lay there kicking its legs the whole time I covered It in killer mist, and last time I looked, was still doing that. Is It struggling in the throes of agony as the insecticide penetrates Its system and suffocates It? Is Its life flashing before Its eyes? It will probably take all day to die. I don’t care. I feel no guilt that I have poisoned it, none. Oh, for a cockroach-free world!!
Categories: cockroach, phobia, summer joys
10 Comments
EUUUUUUUGH! I am afraid of cockroaches too! In fact, one of Jac’s friends has offered her boyfriend’s Dial-A-Cockroach-Killer service while Jac is away. Fingers crossed I won’t need to use it! Hahaha
Do they sell “Combat” over there? In Malaysia it works very well. We didn’t see any roaches for a long time.
It’s a small thing that the roaches go into. The poison inside sticks to them and spread to their other roach friends. Very effective!
By the way, how cold does it get down there?
Send regards to Baubles. Maybe you could train Baubles to catch roaches?
Why didn’t you squash it into oblivion? I mean if you had to kill, better it be a quick and painless death no? š
a) guess who gets to chase down the ‘roaches around the house, me! š Never mind that I have a phobia too!
b) We both dont go into squishing cause it’s just sooooooooo disgusting. I mean the crunching and the splatter. Never mind the touching. Eughhh.
c) On occasion when I’m feeling particularly malicious I scoop them into a bottle and deliver them over the fence into our neighbours yard! Muhahaha
d) did I ever tell the story where I came home from uni one day, pulled off my shoe and found a squished roach plastered to the bottom of my sock! (*goggle*).
e) Con exagerates about the other insects. I found out about her caterpiller phobia when her sister was here last. The both freaked out at all the hairy spitfires on our front lawn.
Israd’s comment about Baubles catching roaches – hah! So implausible; the only thing Baubles catches these days is ZZZZZZZZs.
I have a roach story: when i was about 18, and a Jim Beam and Coke drinker, i once picked up a glass that had been on the floor beside me to take a sip. I was in a dimly lit room, but could just make out from the light projected by the television screen that there was something at the bottom of my glass. Need i continue? I retched, and had to hold back from regurgitating my Beam. Suffice to say, i don’t drink it anymore, but it’s no reflection on sour mash whisky.
OK here’s my roach story:
I was lying down on the floor and stretching. My hand reached under the sofa. I grabbed what I thought was a piece of plastic candy wrap. I crumpled it up. Crumpled it up some more. Something felt amiss. I looked at what was in my hand.
You guess it.
Seriously, this is a true story.
When I was small I also ate roach pills which looked a lot like Vitamin C those days. Its a wonder I am still alive.
I don’t have a story, but I lived through my brother’s: He stepped on two cockroaches at once! yuck yuck yuck…We wouldn’t let him back in the house until he’d washed his feet and the verandah, the poor bastard.
Well! Obviously this post about cockroaches struck a nerve, somewhere, with some of you š
tfp: hopefully no attacks while Jac is away. I take it she has no cockroach phobia whatsoever?
Israd: Hmm.. I don’t think we have ‘Combat’ here. We do have all sorts of cockroach traps and poisons but I dunno how effective they are! It doesn’t get that cold here, if you compare our temperatures with, say Montreal’s winter temperatures. It doesn’t snow and the lowest it gets in the middle of winter is around 0 degrees. Just cold enough to keep the roaches at bay, I think.
Baubles is completely uninterested in cockroaches. No idea why. Other insects, like crickets, moths, she will chase and even try to eat, but give her a huge brown cockroach and she just looks at it with nary a flicker of interest.
Mooiness: The very idea of having any part of my body come into contact with one of these creatures, even to kill it, makes me feel ill. Even if I were wearing a rubber glove, with a leather glove over it, and a mitten, and an armour glove over my hand, I would still imagine I could feel the squirm of those legs…
M: You’re my brave knight in shining armour [violins]. š
Oh, and who is this Con of whom you speak? [hisses] It’s CW, CW, don’t break my cover!!!
Cherry: OHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MY GAWD that would be my worst nightmare – almost ingesting one!!!!!!!!!
As for Baubles, you might never have seen any evidence of strenuous physical activity in that cat, but this morning she was chasing a moth in the kitchen. Very kitten-like.
Israd: See above re gloves. *shudder*
Anna: TWO!! *faints*
No, Jac has no cockroach phobia whatsoever. She thinks it’s funny that I shriek and jump up on a chair when either of the cats has caught one.
I have a cockroach story. It was a hot summer night and I fell asleep watching TV on the couch. Well, at some point, it got too hot to bear and I woke up, hearing a CRUNCH as I moved my head, I jumped half a foot in the air. Lucky me, I killed it when I moved, so I never saw it wiggle it’s feet.
I think it was one of those German cockroaches that tries to eat your eyebrows…