Have you ever heard of Billy the Exterminator? It's a television show, and Billy is this backwoods guy who takes care of every kind of pest that isn't human. He's generally out of his mind.
I can't stand critters of any kind unless they have a domesticus after their genus and species classifications. I don't like when they're outside, and I certainly don't like when they're inside. That poses a problem for one who opens doors and windows as her form of air conditioning.
Back in senior year of college, my best friend Alexandra and I shared a first-floor apartment that backed up to a wooded area, and quite unfortunately, that made us prone to massive palmetto bugs or water bugs or whatever you call those enormous flying cockroach things. She's even more afraid of bugs than I am, and these suckers have a tendency to crawl fast then fly fast. It's terrifying.
One night we'd been chasing a particular cockroach for approximately two hours, breaking the broom handle trying to beat him, throwing shoes, screaming, running, whining, practically crying, especially when the little jerk flew into Alexandra's closet and started exploring her shoes. We finally shut the door on him and put a towel at the bottom; however, Alexandra wouldn't go to bed until he was dead, or at least guaranteed never to be in her room again. Understandable. So what did we do?
Called every guy I was even remotely close to in my phone's contact list.
"Hey, this is Laura. How are you? Good! Sorry to be calling so late" [it was like midnight at this point] "but are you in town anywhere near my apartment? Oh, really? Well never mind, then. No, it's okay, there's just a huge cockroach in my apartment and my roommate and I are about to have simultaneous psychotic breaks from having been traumatized by him for the past two hours. No really, it's okay. Yeah maybe we will stock up on roach spray next time we're at the store. Thanks anyway. Have a good night! Thanks! Bye."
Alexandra: "Not him either?"
Me: "Nope."
Alexandra: "I thought you had lots of really close guy friends."
Me: "I do. They just happen to be too busy to leave their prior engagements and drive fifteen minutes to kill our cockroach."
Chorus: "What are we going to DOOOOOOOOOOOOO?!?!?!?!!????!!!!!!!!"
I honestly don't remember how that story ends. I will tell you that we picked up roach spray ASAP, though. Nasty.
Anyway, what made me think of that is that there was this gigantic ant-looking bug that was flying around my apartment, apparently focused on my tall rectangular orgel vreten paper lamp from Ikea. I swear, that thing is bug purgatory -- it's the magic of three light bulbs all in one big tube, but you can NEVER. MAKE IT. OUUUTT. Poor bugs.
I've been freaking out a little bit for the past half-hour or so, trying to figure out how I was going to keep the piece of junk from hanging out in my apartment alive much longer. He certainly didn't make it easy for me, for he kept making the rounds at the top of my lampshade, maybe marking his territory or getting in a few laps before the all-important purgatorial dive or something. He just kept walking arouuund and arouuund and arouuund the square top of the shade, while I stood there with my shoe in hand and practically passed out from watching the repetitive motion.
Finally I decided to just take a whack at him on the edge of my lampshade, hoping he wouldn't soil the stylish orgel vreten paper shade. As much as I hate bugs, I still want the killing of them to be clean and quick. No squirming, no smudging, no crunching, no crawling or flying away. Just dead. Immediately.
I wasn't so lucky this time. He squirmed, he crunched, he crawled, he tried to fly, but he already had pieces of himself scattered which made flying impossible. It was nasty. To my credit, I kept at it until he was just about pulverized. To my discredit [?], I haven't gotten the guts (pun intended!!) yet to clean him up. Maybe I can handle it if I grab him with a few paper towels between us.
Nah, I won't be that much of a wuss, and I certainly won't waste precious paper towels on him. I'll just call my guy friends. You think they'll drive an hour and a half to come pick a dead bug up off my floor, don't you?
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