My Relationship with Roaches

I've had a lot of experiences with these things throughout my life. Roaches. Even the name is ugly, they're hard to get used to and real easy to hate. It's not like they do anything, of course. Usually they're just germ transmitters. Like flies, lizards, mice, cats, dogs...

But then sometimes.. things happen. Sometimes, they're just cruel motherfuckers. I'm not prejudiced, they're just assholes.

When I was 5

I had to go to the bathroom. It was maybe 9 at night so everything was dark. Of course, I waited until the very last minute of whatever cartoon I was watching to quickly run down the hall and make a right at the bathroom. Commercial breaks are so quick, there really is a need to hurry.

I open the bathroom door, slide my bare foot in and put my hand on the switch. I don't flick the switch, though. No, there's a rubber band under my foot. It feels funny, I roll it around, play with it a little while and smile. I realize the cartoon is gonna be on soon, so I hurry up and turn on the light.

From here it all happens so fast. The light is on, I lift my foot and see this big brown thing, practically drunkenly wobble out from under my foot. My teeth grind, my eyes widen, and this foot-fucker decided to fly its way up my leg.

Fuck that shit. Nearly pissed myself as I darted out of there.

Ok, it wasn't this creepy looking. But it flew.

Fast forward a few years to-

When I was 15

It's early morning this time. Getting ready, the whole routine. I'm the first one awake. It's time for breakfast, maybe a hard boiled egg. Maybe an egg sandwich. Classy stuff. I was always classy.

I open the fridge, I get an egg, put it on the counter top. So far so good, life is pretty fucking sweet. Lower a pot, fill it up with water. Put that pot and water on medium high and wait for it to boil. Fuck yeah I'm a pro.

So I wait a few minutes, the water is boiling, I stick the egg in it. All that fancy stuff, and then I pull a glass out. To drink from it or something. Of course, under that glass was a family of cockroaches, staring up at me blankly. Their fancy little antennae twitching like they've been caught in the act.

"That's awfully rude, man. We're here making these babies come out and you're fucking interrupting us. Why don't you go squeal like a little bitch and forget about making breakfast? Eating sucks anyway." - Roaches

I took their advice. Later on that night I found them eating my toothpaste. It's a surprising detail to note that I never got a cavity after that point.

Less than this. Still.

Two days ago

I was emptying out a closet. This closet has always had a big hole that leads to the tub on the bathroom on the other side. It's for easy plumbing purposes or something. You know what whatever. It's got big piece of plastic on the wall and that's where the hole is. It's just wide enough for a basketball to fit through.

Well in the process of clearing the closet out and re-realizing that hole was there, it just seemed logical at the time to satisfy my curiosity and attempt at tugging it off. Right there, on that chewed-off rust-black floor that's most likely corroded by the never ending tub leak. With little brown marks up against the walls, and the faint smell of dirty mop.

I was pretty curious. I mean, I tugged at that plastic bitch hard. I don't know what it is that I did wrong, but apparently my feet were doing a better job. I fell.

Usually when something looks shady, you stay away from it. I however decided to stand on it and sink 5 feet into the ground all of a sudden. That cheap closet floor decided to give out, right when I needed it to work, and it was disgusting. I scraped my right arm on the side a bit, but that's fine. "Just a graze" says my inner macho man.

What wasn't fine was the hole on the bottom, near my knee. Maggots around the rim as far as I could see, the occasional flying insect zooming out, and you can't ignore the giant (about 16 inches long and maybe 6 inches wide) cockroach. I could see it too, looking at me with those fucking giant beady eyes. Its fucking antennae poking out from its hole/nest. It's at that point that I took my battle-axe, which I have on me at all times, and swung it right across its "head". It's not clearly defined, but I took the top chunk off in one swift crunch of a sound.

Bigger.

Oh it kept moving though. The fucker.