Tuesday, September 21, 2010

This is Africa. There are bugs.

(Roach drawn to actual size.)

"This is Africa. There are bugs." says a sign posted in our apartment warning us not to leave food out. Well, we haven't left food out. A and I love eating in bed and watching TV (we once ate baked ziti straight out of the pan in bed--is this making us more attractive?--to be fair, we'd had a bad day), but we've been very good about not bringing food into our bedroom here.

So it was sort of surprising (I screamed) to see a "novelty-sized" (A's words) cockroach in our bedroom, right up where the wall meets the ceiling. I've killed about one mosquito per day in our bedroom, we've got a bit of ant problem (and a bigger ant poison problem) in the kitchen, and I've seen a few small, discreet New York-sized roaches in the bathroom. Also there are flies. But this thing was enormous--bigger than a Texas-sized roach.

So I screamed and ran out of the room with my hands over my head, and told A, who was in the bath, to kill it. A, ignoring the fact that obviously the only reason I'm marrying him or anyone is so that they will take care of bugs--I love sexism when it benefits me, like when women aren't obligated to go to services or carry heavy things--finished his bath.

When he got out, he made P kill it. P did an excellent job, and I made sure the thing actually went down the toilet, as I recalled that in Texas, roaches were sometimes revived by an electrical shock when they hit the water (someone please challenge flag me on this--I have no idea if I made it up).

7 comments:

  1. One minute after posting this, we discovered a Second enormous cockroach in our bedroom. One cockroach is gross; two is just scary. This time Adam and I decided to man up and take care of him alone. Lucky for us, he decided to hide under a shoe, making it pretty easy to kill him. Definitely a Darwin Award winner in the roach category.

    The source of these roaches? We *think* it's because we left the bedroom window open at night by accident. I really hope it is not going to be the new norm. Shudder.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Okay, fine. I left the window open. Not we.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You didn't make it up. I mean, your science may be off, but you definitely have to make sure they don't come back to life. Relatedly, DO NOT POST MORE PICTURES OF ROACHES.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Perhaps you have been away from Texas so long that you forgot how big the roaches are--especially when they are flying. Remind me of this if I ever complain about California.
    Yeah and NO MORE ROACH PICTURES; I AGREE.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I know how you feel about bugs. This must have been traumatic. Also, must agree with those ask for NO MORE ROACH PICS!

    ReplyDelete
  6. remind me who P is...do you guys have a housemate? (besides the roaches.)

    ReplyDelete
  7. P is our fellow fellow--that is, he's doing the same fellowship as Adam and our companion for the year.

    ReplyDelete