So imagine my ire when I noticed one day that the better part of my single remaining loaf of bread had a small hole chewed into the package, and that some mystery creature had burrowed its way into the nearest slice and back through nearly the entire length of the loaf. Rather than risk stirring awake any number of weevils or roaches or whatever kind of bread bug could have been behind this, I decided instead to just throw the rest of the loaf away. It was stale by that point anyway because of the hole. And in doing so, I thought I had thrown out the pests as well.
I was wrong, evidently.
Yesterday I went to fix myself a sandwich, pulled out my brand new unopened loaf of bread, and found yet another hole. Fortunately, this time, the mystery bug only chewed a small crater into the crust of the nearest slice, so there were no tunnels. I just threw that slice away and started storing my bread on my stove top until I win the war I’m fighting with these little pantry monsters. This is only the latest assault the insect population around here has made in our ongoing battles, though. A few weekends ago around Thanksgiving, while my brother was staying with me at my apartment, I opened my cabinet above my stove to get some cereal and a roach like something out of Jurassic Park scuttled out on top of it. Interesting factoid: I hate roaches.
Now, let me clarify there. I am not afraid of roaches. There is no fear reaction induced by roaches for me unless they jump out of somewhere suddenly, and just about anything that jumps out suddenly will scare me. I do not like them, though. I hate them with a fiery passion because they have an incredible inborn ability to be exactly where you really don’t want them to be. Like inside your cereal cabinet, probably laying their nasty leathery little roach eggs in your box of frosted flakes.
Because nothing makes a balanced breakfast more complete than roach egg bits and protein-rich cockroach babies.
Another reason I hate them is because every time one of them manages to position itself anywhere within my mother’s line of sight while I’m at home, it becomes my job to kill it. Normally my solution to this problem is to sic my cat on it because she loves to chase them, however she won’t kill it. She’ll just chase it under the refrigerator or something and then becomes disinterested. Instead, I have to kill it. And if you don’t happen to have a can of Raid handy, the only way to do so is to smash it. This is another reason I hate them: There is literally no clean way to kill them. I realize that exterminators use chemicals which kill them in a non-smashy way, and I realize that a can of Raid does just about the same thing, but let’s face it. When an exterminator comes through, the roaches don’t just die where they are. They have to crawl out into the middle of the nearest public space and die dramatically there. For hours. You will never know how many roaches are in your house until you get a visit from the exterminator, and then they’re littering your floor like fall leaves. Raid is a quicker way to kill them, but you still have dead roach and sticky roach spray on your floor afterwards.
But of course, at least 80% of the time you don’t have a can of roach spray. It’s just you and a shoe. Your shoe, of course, because you can’t use anyone else’s shoe. Nobody else wants roach goo on their flip flops.
So here I was in my kitchen with Roachzilla staring me down from the top of my cabinet door, and the last thing I wanted was to smash him there. Now for some reason, I know that Windex kills ants on contact. A lot of things kill ants on contact, but Windex accomplishes it very quickly. I have no idea if it works the same on roaches, but I figured I’d give it a try. Unfortunately, I had no Windex on hand. What I did have was a can of Scrubbing Bubbles foaming tile cleaner. I figured that would at least do something, so I grabbed that.
When I arrived back in the kitchen, the damn thing hadn’t moved at all. He was just sitting there, giving me the little roachy stink-eye and daring me to try something. So I gave him a facefull of chemical cleanser.
It didn’t kill him, unsurprisingly enough, but it did blind the crap out of him. He barely even moved, actually. Just stood there and took it like a hoss. Though I imagine that might be because his eyes felt like they were on fire and his antennae were cemented to his back. So I sprayed him again. After about four bursts, I decided this was an ineffective tactic, so I picked up an empty washed-out jar I had on my counter and battled him into it.
Now, there’s something about being male which is instilled in us from early childhood that, when we have some small insect or creature trapped inside a container, our inner sadists come to whisper evil things in our ears. And don’t even start with that whole “Serial killers start by torturing bugs” thing because you know as well as I do there was at least one point in your childhood when you caught a bee in a gatorade bottle and decided it was time for revenge. Fortunately for Roachzilla though, I’ve long since learned to control such urges. Even if my microwave did look rather inviting. Instead I emptied him out in the flowerbed outside and he scurried away to a puddle, where he either proceeded to wash the liquid pain out of his eyes or drown himself to end his misery. I wasn’t able to tell which.
I won the battle, that day, but the war still rages. And one of these days, when we’re all crawling out of our underground bunkers to face nuclear fallout and post-apocalyptic wastelands, a giant mutated roach will find me. And he’ll say, “Let me tell you a story, friend. I used to have this cousin, Vinny. Thought he found paradise in a box of off-brand applejacks, but next thing you know some guy sprays him in the eyes with foaming hatred in a can. I think you and I need to have a talk, my friend…”
Unless Fallout: New Vegas lied to me.
-The Sarcastic Soul-
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