Saturday, 26 September 2009 02:46 pm
A Slice-of-Life, Swat-of-Death Story
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deckardcanineBecause of my private entrance, I rarely see the other tenants of the house. But last night provided an odd opportunity to get acquainted.
It was past 11 PM. I was getting ready for bed when two young women from upstairs -- let's call them "Kate" and "Zoe" (and yes, I remember their real names) -- knocked on my door and called my name. They said that Kate found a bug in her room that was "like a cockroach with a mutation right out of a comic book."
Way to reinforce gender stereotypes, huh? To be fair, tho, I was the only other person in the house. There's a good chance our landlady would have taken care of it herself. (She's an apparent lesbian, FWIW.) With memories of the roach I killed in my own suite a few months ago, as well as the spider scene from Annie Hall, I agreed to do the dirty work.
I donned a bathrobe, grabbed a small plastic broom and matching dustpan, and told Kate to lead the way. "Why me?" she replied. "Am I the sacrifice?" She went first anyway. I reminded them both to report this to our landlady, particularly since it was a second occurrence.
We spent several minutes searching the room for the bugger. I'm somewhat glad it took so long, because it allowed me to get an idea of Kate's interests. She has shelf after shelf of movies (none as old as Annie Hall) and shelf after shelf of fantasy and sci-fi books. I commented on this, and she said it seems everyone in the house likes these things. Well, with the probable exception of the bugs.
Kate was trying to convince herself it had left the room and was not coming back. She said that more likely, if we couldn't find and kill it, she would spend the night at someone else's house to avoid nightmares. I reminded her that roaches don't bite or sting, but she was worried it would fly onto her while making a sound reminiscent of some horror movie I haven't seen. The next night here would be okay, because she'd assume the roach either died or moved on. She had tentative plans to buy a guard tarantula, tho I'm sure that's against the lease.
We were on the verge of giving up when Kate heard the sound again. In seconds, she trained her flashlight on the bug. It was a roach no larger than the first one I'd seen. Kate noted that I was hesitant to get near it myself, but my main concern was its location: the surrounding objects weren't designed to take a good swat. I could nudge it, but who knew where it would flutter next?
Eventually I went ahead and slowly brushed the roach. It didn't go far, tho it moved swiftly enough that I needed a moment to find it again. After several swipes, I had it on the floor where I wanted. Kate cringed as it crunched under my slipper, but one merciful thing about roaches is that they don't splatter when I put all my weight on them. They stay in one piece and just stop moving.
I swept up the peaceful-looking roach. Zoe, it turned out, was on the phone with our landlady as I came out of the room. (I didn't want her to take my advice that soon.) Kate demanded that I flush the roach down the toilet. After protesting the waste of water, I did anyway. Then she said she'd waste some more water by taking a shower before going back to bed.
Before we parted, Kate asked what she might cook for me as a reward. Of the possibilities she mentioned, I chose brownies. Now to wait for her to feel well enough to bake.
In conclusion, thank God for cockroaches!
It was past 11 PM. I was getting ready for bed when two young women from upstairs -- let's call them "Kate" and "Zoe" (and yes, I remember their real names) -- knocked on my door and called my name. They said that Kate found a bug in her room that was "like a cockroach with a mutation right out of a comic book."
Way to reinforce gender stereotypes, huh? To be fair, tho, I was the only other person in the house. There's a good chance our landlady would have taken care of it herself. (She's an apparent lesbian, FWIW.) With memories of the roach I killed in my own suite a few months ago, as well as the spider scene from Annie Hall, I agreed to do the dirty work.
I donned a bathrobe, grabbed a small plastic broom and matching dustpan, and told Kate to lead the way. "Why me?" she replied. "Am I the sacrifice?" She went first anyway. I reminded them both to report this to our landlady, particularly since it was a second occurrence.
We spent several minutes searching the room for the bugger. I'm somewhat glad it took so long, because it allowed me to get an idea of Kate's interests. She has shelf after shelf of movies (none as old as Annie Hall) and shelf after shelf of fantasy and sci-fi books. I commented on this, and she said it seems everyone in the house likes these things. Well, with the probable exception of the bugs.
Kate was trying to convince herself it had left the room and was not coming back. She said that more likely, if we couldn't find and kill it, she would spend the night at someone else's house to avoid nightmares. I reminded her that roaches don't bite or sting, but she was worried it would fly onto her while making a sound reminiscent of some horror movie I haven't seen. The next night here would be okay, because she'd assume the roach either died or moved on. She had tentative plans to buy a guard tarantula, tho I'm sure that's against the lease.
We were on the verge of giving up when Kate heard the sound again. In seconds, she trained her flashlight on the bug. It was a roach no larger than the first one I'd seen. Kate noted that I was hesitant to get near it myself, but my main concern was its location: the surrounding objects weren't designed to take a good swat. I could nudge it, but who knew where it would flutter next?
Eventually I went ahead and slowly brushed the roach. It didn't go far, tho it moved swiftly enough that I needed a moment to find it again. After several swipes, I had it on the floor where I wanted. Kate cringed as it crunched under my slipper, but one merciful thing about roaches is that they don't splatter when I put all my weight on them. They stay in one piece and just stop moving.
I swept up the peaceful-looking roach. Zoe, it turned out, was on the phone with our landlady as I came out of the room. (I didn't want her to take my advice that soon.) Kate demanded that I flush the roach down the toilet. After protesting the waste of water, I did anyway. Then she said she'd waste some more water by taking a shower before going back to bed.
Before we parted, Kate asked what she might cook for me as a reward. Of the possibilities she mentioned, I chose brownies. Now to wait for her to feel well enough to bake.
In conclusion, thank God for cockroaches!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject