Friday, September 14, 2007

Super Cockroach

I sat up in bed last night, thoroughly enjoying my perusal of "Anna Karenina" when I was suddenly disturbed by insect-like buzzing and pinging atop our wardrobe dresser. Initially furrowing my brow at the disturbance, I dismissed the noise as perhaps a large moth and went back to my reading. The next time the flailing sounds came it was in the direction of the door, which lay directly in front of our bed, so I looked up at the wall above the door just in time to see a VERY larg dark-brown object scuttering along the wall until finally falling on the top of the open door. I wiggled squeamishly out of bed and crept closer to get a better look at what I thought was, still, a moth. My first thought, as the creature began to come into focus, was "whoa, that moth seems really round... I can't see the angles of its wings." Hmmm... weird... My subsequent thoughts went something like this:

Those look like feelers on that thing...
...are those FEELERS??
...that couldn't possibly be...
...is that a COCKROACH?????

I found myself silently whimpering these helpless sentiments as I cowered 5 or 6 feet away from the door. The thing that unnerved me about this monster was the realization that it had flown to that position. Eargh.
I began feebly calling Michael, who was working in his office at the end of the hall, most likely wearing headphones as he usually listens to news or podcasts while working and doesn't want to disturb the rest of us.

"Michael," I half-whispered, not wanting to wake John, who was asleep in the internvening room.
Becoming panicked, "Michael, Michael, Michael, Michael!" I hissed out, hoping the repetition and anxiety in my voice would penetrate his headphones. Apparently it worked.
"There is the biggest cockroach I've ever seen in my LIFE!"
(To his puzzled look, I point animatedly) "right there, on the door."
"Whoa," he says in genuine surprise. "That really is huge."

We bantered back and forth a minute, he still standing in the hallway and me still in the bedroom, neither of us daring to venture any closer-- should we capture it in a cup? Try to smash it? Finally, Michael went to the guest bathroom and returned with a large wad of toilet paper, and there I am wincing in the corner saying "are you sure you want to do that??? It FLIES." Of course, he is a very manly husband so he was willing to grab it to save the damsel in distress. He crept, carefully to the door, tiger-like, and darted his hand out to grab the horrible monster. I managed to stifle a scream and turn it into a sort of whimper, but was utterly unable to contain myself when this post-apocalyptic nightmare suddenly leapt from the tissue in which Michael had capture it and began scurrying, no, racing would be a better word, in every direction, trying to evade his captor.

This larger-than-walnut-sized behemoth could most accurately be described as a mixed breed of cockroach, moth, cricket, and possibly small dragon. I am convinced that one of our neighbors is breeding these in an attempt to take over the building-- possibly the world.

So after much scurrying & galloping around the room, attempting to snare the beast, (under the clothes hamper, behind the door, nearly into the wardrobe) Michael snatched it again, this time with a much firmer grasp. I am proud to say that my hero only yelped once, and that was probably because I was squealing and bleating at him, wordlessly flapping & pointing and being absolutely no help at all, accidentally smacking him once with my flailing arms. I'm not proud of my behavior, but there you are.

Well, "Grody, the Super-Cockroach" as I have loathingly named him, was promptly flushed down the toilet at least 5 times, as I kept having visions of getting up in the night to use the toilet (which, in my current condition, I do quite often) and being attacked on my hind-quarters by Grody. Just to be safe, I have continued flushing the toilet every time I happen to walk by, smiling with satisfaction at our brave escapade.

Now, you may think, that because I have moved to Malaysia with my husband, I would be expecting, nay even welcoming, of such experiences, but I can assure you that every measure possible will be taken to prevent this from happening again-- including ferreting out the monster responsible for this awful cockroach-breeding conspiracy and feeding him to his experiment. Unfortunately I was unable to take a picture of Grody before he met his untimely & watery death, but I found a picture on the web that very accurately describes what he looked like to me:


4 comments:

  1. Augh!!! I hate cockroaches! Lafe once bravely rescued me from one in the kitchen. I had gone to get a drink of water before bed when I noticed a dark spot peeking out from the toaster on the counter. Unfortunately, I wasn't wearing my glasses, so I was only inches away before I realized the spot was actually a roach. I proceeded to hide out in the bedroom while Lafe smacked the toaster across the room with one hand and smashed the cockroach with a shoe. I was petrified and ours was just a measly Arizona sewer roach, not a giant Malaysian dragon-roach!! Hurrah for brave husbands!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Yuck! You have some pretty scary-looking roaches there in Malaysia. What an adventure. I got stung by a scorpion last week and Paul had one on his leg, but managed not to get stung. But as strange as it sounds, I much prefer scorpions over giant roaches. I'm so glad you both survived the encounter!

    ReplyDelete
  4. You'd think a girl raised in Mississippi would have seen her fair share of giant flying pests. Either you have forgotten your youth or this really WAS a monster ready to take on the world. We're glad you have a knight in shining armor to care for you. Way to go Michael!

    ReplyDelete

readers