Karma moved quickly.

[angledge]

So last Monday, I was out in the field with my Irish co-worker Anne-Marie. A-M is great fun to work with, partly because she's just fun & funny, but partly because she finds the great American outdoors to be just slightly overpopulated with what she calls "the damn creepy-crawlies". We rarely get through a day without A-M having some heart-racing encounter with Mother Nature, in her less-than-perfectly-domesticated New World guise.

It was late afternoon Monday & we were closing down at a site that had a wooded perimeter. To me, it was a familiar summer sound when the cicadas (or locusts, or whatever they are - ladybugbutt, a little help here?) started in with their buzzing chorus. I think most American readers have heard this sound: it starts low, then as more & more insects in surrounding trees join in, it increases in volume, sometimes seeming to move through the trees, & then dropping back off. I noted it, but didn't think anything more of it until I saw A-M absolutely rooted to the spot. "WHAT IS THAT?!?" she demanded, staring at the trees in the beginning of a full-blown panic. I tried to explain, "It's nothing, it's just insect noise", but she was having none of that. "It's aliens! It's like something out of Space Invaders! Christ on a bike, this country is just too much!" & she was off, ranting about our disease-carrying ticks, poison ivy, venomous spiders, camouflaged snakes, not to mention our extreme weather & trigger-happy cops. Meanwhile, we're packing up at double speed, & I'm laughing my head off at this melodious fountain of vituperation. As we're leaving the site, I asked her what she would've done if she had been out there by herself when the noise started. She replied, "I would've screamed my head off, driven away like a house on fire, & then filled out an incident report explaining that I had been attacked by bears."

Cue more maniacal laughing on my part.

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So on Tuesday, hotpantsgalore got the exterminator to visit our apartment. We've had a slight roach problem, usually amounting to one, maybe two, little cockroaches being killed in the kitchen every day. They are the little ones, less than a quarter-inch long, easily crushed. But annoying & persistent, still popping by to visit even when all the dishes are washed, food stowed, & counters scrubbed. I understand that they are attracted to sources of water, like our damp dish sponges or dripping sink faucets.

Wednesday night, when I went into the kitchen to wash up the evening's dinner dishes, the kitchen was BESET by roaches. I can only assume that the exterminator's visit had driven them out of their hidey-holes. I killed a dozen or so in quick order, but I was completely grossed out by the invasion & went into a cleaning frenzy. hotpantsgalore wisely retreated to bed, leaving me to work out my angst with some Comet & a scrubby sponge.

When I finally had re-cleaned the already-clean kitchen & was feeling calm enough to go to bed, I went into the bathroom, took out my lenses, & started brushed my teeth. I spit out the toothpaste, got a mouthful of the mouthwash, & then leaned over the sink to spit the mouthwash. Mind you, I leaned over rather close to the sink, because without my lenses I can't see very well, so I get real close so I don't accidently spit mouthwash onto the faucets.

At the exact moment I was bent over the sink, a GIGANTIC cockroach crawled straight up out of the drain. I SCREAMED, the girliest scream I have ever uttered, & spit mouthwash all over the disgusting vermin. It scuttled around in the sink (possibly confused by the mouthwash assault) as I raced into the kitchen to get the bug spray. I nuked it with about 5,000 gallons of Raid, & then stood in the bathroom hyperventilating (probably inhaling more bug spray than was good for me) & trying to get my heart rate to drop below 300 beats per minute. At this point, a sleepy hotpantsgalore emerges from the bedroom, rubbing her eyes. "What are you screaming about?" she asks in an irritated voice. I say, "F- f- fucking cockroach" & point at the carcass in the sink. She gives it half a glance, & says, "Yeah, that's how big they are in Texas." Back to sleep.

I sat up reading for the next million years & I don't believe I'm ever going to sleep again. F- f- fucking cockroaches.

Comments

[chaosvizier.livejournal.com]

BWAAAAAHAHAHAHA!

I can laugh because I already wrote up my bug story, and schadenfreude loves company. I was worried that your story was going to involve the cockroach ON your toothbrush as you began brushing. That would have been OMGWTFNASTY. But not inconceivable.

See? It can always be worse.

[fizrep.livejournal.com]

I thought she was going there too, and I was going to lose my lunch for real.

[angledge.livejournal.com]

The only good thing about this whole encounter is that I now have a breath weapon.