Our weather turned cooler a couple of weeks ago and so I opened windows to air out the stuffiness of a closed house. My front door is usually always open during the day because I have another door(I'm sure there is a name for all these doors, but for the life of me I'm drawing a blank...storm door?) that is top to bottom windows for the dog to see out and for light to be brought into my otherwise dark house. There is a magic window within the door. Pull down the window and it becomes a screen. It is the best door. Except when it lets in flying Florida cockroaches.
One Friday night Madison, Kelly and I were watching our Friday night television when Tom decided to take out the dog. He opened the door and then stood there with it open while he tried to watch just a little more of the program we were watching. As he exited and the door was closing behind him, in came this LARGE flying object. The three of us inside followed its flight pattern across the room until it landed on the wall directly above the couch that I was sitting in. Immediately Kelly and I were on our feet and across the other side of the room screaming at the top of our lungs as if the grim reaper himself had entered our house with a scythe. Madison never moved, but stared at us as if we had completely lost our minds.
Kelly/Cara: "OMG! OMG! A cockroach!! Kill it! Get it! AAAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!
Madison: "What? Why are you screaming?"
Kelly/Cara: "THEREISACOCKROACHTHESIZEOFCALIFORNIAONTHEWALLOMGKILLIT"
About this time the cockroach decided to have some fun with us and he flew DIRECTLY AT US. Kelly and I fell over one another as we turned to escape the reaper. It was like a comedy where two people go in opposite directions, bang into one another, turn to go elsewhere and come full circle into one another again. Eventually we got it right. Kelly ran into the kitchen and I ran in the opposite direction into the hallway. At some point as I ran I realized that if I continued running down the hall I would not see where the cockroach landed and thus would never be able to enter the living room again. So I stopped in the hall and peeked out the entrance. The cockroach, sensing the hysteria he was causing, would land on one wall and then take off again from one end of the room to the other. Eventually I lost the bastard. Through all of this Kelly and I continued to exercise our lungs which had apparently been dormant for far too long and needed to let off steam.
Madison slowly got up off the couch and returned with a can of Febreeze.
Kelly: "What are you going to do with that? Make it smell better? For god's sake get a shoe!!!"
Madison: "You two need to calm down!"
Which of course had the opposite effect. Kelly immediately returned, half of her in the room, her hands on her hips.
Kelly: "Don't tell me to calm down. You have never had one of those crawling up your leg in the middle of the night! You haven't had one lurking over you while you were washing your hair in the shower. When that happens to you I seriously doubt you will tell me to calm down!!"
Madison: "What is the big deal? Why is this animal so much more frightening than say a rat?"
Kelly: "A rat? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? A rat is cute with four little legs, two little ears, and a nose. It has fur that is soft and cuddly. A roach is none of those things. NONE OF THOSE THINGS!! It is skeletal. It has a hard shell that is crunchy when you step on it and spindly little legs and antennae. NOTHING ABOUT AN ANIMAL THAT CARRIES ITS SKELETON ON THE OUTSIDE IS RIGHT."
At this point I was back on the couch. As long as the critter was out of sight I was okay. Kelly paced back and forth going on and on about the anatomy of a cockroach and then spiders and then insects, talking in a very loud, stern, why-are-you-such-an-idiot voice. It finally got me laughing, which in turn made her angrier until she finally got caught up in our laughter and calmed down some. She sat back down again, but kept jumping any time she felt a twinge on her skin. Madison went around spraying the Febreeze around the room until I couldn't breathe from all of the chemicals and had to put my shirt over my nose.
Kelly: "Madison. You don't perfume bugs. You kill them! With a shoe! Kill them! Kill them dead."
Madison: "I'm not going to kill them just because you don't like them."
Kelly: "Well, that is where you are wrong! Cockroaches should be killed and killed some more. You mark my words. There will be nothing but trouble with that thing because you didn't kill it."
Ah, foreshadowing. The next night while I was home alone watching television who should appear out from behind my television on the wall? He slowly crawled up the wall toward the ceiling which I thought was a good sign. I have a bug guy and I was hoping that his magical spray had slowed the little sucker down. I got up and went looking for the roach spray. It wasn't under the kitchen sink. It wasn't in the garage where it usually is. I could feel myself becoming frantic. I peeked into the room and he was still in the same spot so I got out a bottle of water and vinegar and tried to spray him. Only the nozzle on the spray bottle wasn't working properly and a small vapor of spray fizzled into the air about five inches from the bottle and then drifted downward. The roach went back behind the television. I got one of Tom's shoes.
I waited and eventually he came back up the wall. I went to hit him and he took flight. I had to duck to avoid getting touched and he flew across the room to the wall above the couch. I went toward him and he flew to the other side of the room. He ran behind some decorative nonsense I have hanging there so I hit the wall with the shoe and he scurried out. I tried to hit him, but he he was at an odd angle and I missed. He went into the foyer by my front door. I did not venture into the small alcove. Instead I texted Kelly.
Me: "The roach has reappeared."
Kelly: "KILL HIM! KILL HIM!"
Me: "I tried. I missed. He is somewhere by the front door."
Kelly: "Get a shoe. You have to KILL HIM!"
Me: "I have one. And I also have the stupid Frebreeze."
Kelly: "Listen to me...KILL HIM. KILL HIM DEAD."
At this point Madison arrived home from a babysitting job. She came in and began talking about the five month old baby she was caring for, but I couldn't stop looking for the roach. As she talked and talked suddenly I jumped up. The roach was crawling up the same wall where the front door is. He was behind the door near the bottom. I picked up the shoe, but Madison jumped up and put her hand out. She went to the door, opened it, and coaxed the roach outside where he ran off into the grass.
Madison: "He's out. There. Are you better? See that wasn't so bad."
I texted this to Kelly.
Kelly: "That was a mistake. He will return...with friends. YOU SHOULD HAVE KILLED HIM."
Two days later my bug guy showed up for my three month spraying. So far all bugs discovered have been on their backs and DEAD.
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