La Cucaracha
I try to avoid being a "high maintenance" kind of girl.
You know who she is.
The girl who takes ten hours getting ready for dates. The girl who wears eyeliner to the beach. The girl who calls her boyfriend "Bubsy Wubsy Peanut Butter Pie" in public and drags him on shopping excursions so he can wait outside the dressing room as she takes eight hours to try on different outfits and in the end, he'll probably end up paying for them. You know, that girl. She also probably obsesses about her hair products and also, probably hates camping. Okay. Wait. I hate camping but only because I have some really good reasons for that which include frogs and tampons. YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW.
Point is. I try to stay as independent and low-key as possible, whether in a relationship or single. Not that I haven't had major high maintenance girl meltdowns. BUT I TRY. That is the point. It is hard to be low-key about bugs. Let's be honest.
If I see a spider on the wall, I will probably take care of it myself. I will try to let it out of the window or else I will smush it. (I TRY NOT TO but sometimes, ack I have no choice). I must admit, I don't like creepy crawly things but I also don't like killing them. So in all honesty, if there is anyone else, male or female in the vicinity, I will gently ask them to help me remove the insect. And by gently I mean exactly what I did this evening while in the shower, which was to scream at the top of my lungs to my roommate "HELP. WATERBUG. CEILING. GROSS."
I can deal with moths. I can deal with flies. Mosquitos, eh, kind of irritating. Spiders, they all freak me out except Daddy Long Legs but I will get up close and personal if necessary, repeating the mantra under my breath, "I am bigger than them, they cannot hurt me, they will not grow 15 feet tall and eat me like the ones in Harry Potter..." Hey! I can even deal with waterbugs as DISGUSTINGLY VILE as they are. But the thing I cannot stand, the bug that will send me screaming and jumping up and down?
The cockroach.
Vegan Mike has an alcove outside his basement apartment, which means that to get into his place you need to go through three doors. (And I go to his apartment frequently for Covert Vegan Operations such as Operation Steal Mike's Hummus and Operation Make Mike Buy You Grapefruit). Anyhow, the space between the first and second is very small and quite garage-ish, meaning it's essentially the same as being outside. When I go over to VM's apartment, I always make him go in first because he once commented that he always sees tons of bugs in that alcove, hanging on the walls. Bugs like spiders. And moths. AND ROACHES.
However, when I LEAVE the apartment, after breaking and entering, hummus in tow, it gets tricky because I have to go through those doors first. And alone. So I did that on Tuesday. I walked out of the first door, threw open the door to the alcove, and briskly forced my way outside into the light, unable to stand there and search for living creatures that were most likely staring down at me with beady, buggy eyes.
I was fumbling with keys and fumbling with stolen hummus and fumbling with my iPod and wallet and small children that tend to live inside the HUGE bag I carry around on a normal basis. Seriously, this big is so large. It takes me a good 20 minutes to find my lip gloss. Not that I'm obsessive about the lip gloss OR MAKE UP OR GIRLY THINGS LIKE THAT. Ahem.
So I'm fumbling when I feel a little something on my foot. I'm wearing blue flip-flops so my feet are bare and I think, "Hm. That felt kind of gross. But heyyy, my iPod! I totally feel like listening to Michael Bolton right now!" And then...that feeling again...except not on my foot...on my calf..no wait...up my leg HOLY SHIT. I begin to scream. I am screaming and jumping up and down. It was something! CRAWLING! SOMETHING CRAWLING UP MY LEG! And not in a sexy way! I'm shaking my pants! "GET IT OUT GET IT OUT!!!" I am screaming in Vegan Mike's parking lot.
And it is out. Out of my pants. It is laying on the pavement, face up, still and lifeless.
It is a cockroach the size of my fist.
I don't know whether to throw up or throw up or throw up some more. I contemplate setting my body on fire in order to get rid of the disgust I feel knowing that a COCKROACH was CRAWLING UP MY PANTS. That an honest-to-God JUMBO SIZE COCKROACH was maneuvering its way up my naked flesh. I decided to both throw up and set myself on fire. Later on, I called Mike and explained the situation.
Me: Just so you know. It really did happen. And there's a dead cockroach outside your door, laying on his back on the pavement.
VM: Wait. How did it die?
Me: It died! I was shaking my pants, I think I shook it to death!
VM: Uh. You can't SHAKE a cockroach to death.
Me: Yes! You can do it with a baby, you can do it with a cockroach!
VM: I...don't know what that means.
Later on, Mike went out to inspect the body.
And you know what? THERE WAS NO BODY. Well, no cockroach body, anyhow. Do you realize what happened? That fucking cockroach crawled up my leg, trying to find some garbage or get some action or who KNOWS and then I shook him out of there and he knew he was in trouble so he PLAYED DEAD.
Do you know cockroaches do this in order to avoid being killed? THEY FAKE DEATH!? And it WORKED. I feel for thelittle hugeass sucker. But not really. You know why?
BECAUSE HE CRAWLED UP MY PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Does this make me high maintenance? Uh.
Does this mean I am never stealing anything from Mike's apartment again? YES.
Does this have anything to do with the fact that my roommate killed a waterbug today and also a cockroach and that apparently, my apartment is now infested with various insects that refuse to die?
It does.
That one cockroach. He told all his friends about me. About the fun of torturing me. About how I screamed and begged for mercy. About how he tricked me into believing I had shaken him to death. That roach. He is a twisted little son of a bitch.
And now I can't sleep because I know he is waiting for me.
Waiting for me to close my eyes and drift off to a pleasant sleep, unaware of him and his family, scuttling across the kitchen floor, padding across the carpet into my bedroom and seeking out my sweatpants once more.
You know who she is.
The girl who takes ten hours getting ready for dates. The girl who wears eyeliner to the beach. The girl who calls her boyfriend "Bubsy Wubsy Peanut Butter Pie" in public and drags him on shopping excursions so he can wait outside the dressing room as she takes eight hours to try on different outfits and in the end, he'll probably end up paying for them. You know, that girl. She also probably obsesses about her hair products and also, probably hates camping. Okay. Wait. I hate camping but only because I have some really good reasons for that which include frogs and tampons. YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW.
Point is. I try to stay as independent and low-key as possible, whether in a relationship or single. Not that I haven't had major high maintenance girl meltdowns. BUT I TRY. That is the point. It is hard to be low-key about bugs. Let's be honest.
If I see a spider on the wall, I will probably take care of it myself. I will try to let it out of the window or else I will smush it. (I TRY NOT TO but sometimes, ack I have no choice). I must admit, I don't like creepy crawly things but I also don't like killing them. So in all honesty, if there is anyone else, male or female in the vicinity, I will gently ask them to help me remove the insect. And by gently I mean exactly what I did this evening while in the shower, which was to scream at the top of my lungs to my roommate "HELP. WATERBUG. CEILING. GROSS."
I can deal with moths. I can deal with flies. Mosquitos, eh, kind of irritating. Spiders, they all freak me out except Daddy Long Legs but I will get up close and personal if necessary, repeating the mantra under my breath, "I am bigger than them, they cannot hurt me, they will not grow 15 feet tall and eat me like the ones in Harry Potter..." Hey! I can even deal with waterbugs as DISGUSTINGLY VILE as they are. But the thing I cannot stand, the bug that will send me screaming and jumping up and down?
The cockroach.
Vegan Mike has an alcove outside his basement apartment, which means that to get into his place you need to go through three doors. (And I go to his apartment frequently for Covert Vegan Operations such as Operation Steal Mike's Hummus and Operation Make Mike Buy You Grapefruit). Anyhow, the space between the first and second is very small and quite garage-ish, meaning it's essentially the same as being outside. When I go over to VM's apartment, I always make him go in first because he once commented that he always sees tons of bugs in that alcove, hanging on the walls. Bugs like spiders. And moths. AND ROACHES.
However, when I LEAVE the apartment, after breaking and entering, hummus in tow, it gets tricky because I have to go through those doors first. And alone. So I did that on Tuesday. I walked out of the first door, threw open the door to the alcove, and briskly forced my way outside into the light, unable to stand there and search for living creatures that were most likely staring down at me with beady, buggy eyes.
I was fumbling with keys and fumbling with stolen hummus and fumbling with my iPod and wallet and small children that tend to live inside the HUGE bag I carry around on a normal basis. Seriously, this big is so large. It takes me a good 20 minutes to find my lip gloss. Not that I'm obsessive about the lip gloss OR MAKE UP OR GIRLY THINGS LIKE THAT. Ahem.
So I'm fumbling when I feel a little something on my foot. I'm wearing blue flip-flops so my feet are bare and I think, "Hm. That felt kind of gross. But heyyy, my iPod! I totally feel like listening to Michael Bolton right now!" And then...that feeling again...except not on my foot...on my calf..no wait...up my leg HOLY SHIT. I begin to scream. I am screaming and jumping up and down. It was something! CRAWLING! SOMETHING CRAWLING UP MY LEG! And not in a sexy way! I'm shaking my pants! "GET IT OUT GET IT OUT!!!" I am screaming in Vegan Mike's parking lot.
And it is out. Out of my pants. It is laying on the pavement, face up, still and lifeless.
It is a cockroach the size of my fist.
I don't know whether to throw up or throw up or throw up some more. I contemplate setting my body on fire in order to get rid of the disgust I feel knowing that a COCKROACH was CRAWLING UP MY PANTS. That an honest-to-God JUMBO SIZE COCKROACH was maneuvering its way up my naked flesh. I decided to both throw up and set myself on fire. Later on, I called Mike and explained the situation.
Me: Just so you know. It really did happen. And there's a dead cockroach outside your door, laying on his back on the pavement.
VM: Wait. How did it die?
Me: It died! I was shaking my pants, I think I shook it to death!
VM: Uh. You can't SHAKE a cockroach to death.
Me: Yes! You can do it with a baby, you can do it with a cockroach!
VM: I...don't know what that means.
Later on, Mike went out to inspect the body.
And you know what? THERE WAS NO BODY. Well, no cockroach body, anyhow. Do you realize what happened? That fucking cockroach crawled up my leg, trying to find some garbage or get some action or who KNOWS and then I shook him out of there and he knew he was in trouble so he PLAYED DEAD.
Do you know cockroaches do this in order to avoid being killed? THEY FAKE DEATH!? And it WORKED. I feel for the
BECAUSE HE CRAWLED UP MY PANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!
Does this make me high maintenance? Uh.
Does this mean I am never stealing anything from Mike's apartment again? YES.
Does this have anything to do with the fact that my roommate killed a waterbug today and also a cockroach and that apparently, my apartment is now infested with various insects that refuse to die?
It does.
That one cockroach. He told all his friends about me. About the fun of torturing me. About how I screamed and begged for mercy. About how he tricked me into believing I had shaken him to death. That roach. He is a twisted little son of a bitch.
And now I can't sleep because I know he is waiting for me.
Waiting for me to close my eyes and drift off to a pleasant sleep, unaware of him and his family, scuttling across the kitchen floor, padding across the carpet into my bedroom and seeking out my sweatpants once more.
5 Comments:
This post literally almost made me cry, I'm not even kidding you. I actually GASPED OUT LOUD. And then I VISIBLY SHIVERED and then made a horrible EW SICK face, all in my office at work. Ok, I grew up in Florida. I know a little something about bugs. I GREW UP with roaches and palmetto bugs (do you know what those are? they are essentially a roach on steroids, they ARE INSANELY HUGE and one time at Girl Scout Camp, I woke up and one was on the edge of my top bunk bed, just STARING AT ME from like 2 inches away). Even still, I am insanely terrified of them.
We actually don't really have roaches in Madison which is AMAZING. However, we do have CENTIPEDES which it turns out are potentially worse. I don't know if you have those in NYC (oh god, I hope not) but they are the MOST digusting bug on the planet and my last apartment was INFESTED with them over the summer. I seriously saw like 10 a day.
Ew, now I feel like I have things crawling on me.
p.s. I like daddy long legs, too. They usually just hang out in corners and ignore you, unlike other spiders which think it's fun to RUN AND JUMP ON YOUR FACE AND EAT YOU.
AHHH! I am terrified of your story. Bugs give me the major creepy crawlies and just thinking about a cockroach the size fo a fist makes me want to douse myself in bleach.
The other day, I was hiding in the shower screaming bloody murder because there was a bug int he sick. A furry bug. What the fuck? I made my boyfriend (who had just come back from a trip where he hadn't slept in over 24 hours) wake up and get rid of the bug because otherwise I was going to take up permanent residence in the shower and survive off of leave-in conditioner and body wash.
Ha! Good times. Remember the picture of the the crab in my brother's toilet when he was living in Fiji? Well, one of these days I'll have to tell you about his experience with the huge cockroaches down there.
Let's just say that it gives new meaning to the word "cock"roach.
Laura--Nah, you're not high maintenence, maybe a little squeaky-femme which most guys seem to need:-) THIS from the book I am now reading: 'No use doing like that, old man. Watch ME.' Harris stalked his prey. The cockroach was half-way up the wall, and Harris, as he moved on tiptoe across the creaking floor, began to weave the light of his torch backwards and forwards over the cockroach. Then suddenly he struck and left a smear of blood. 'One up,' he said. 'You have to mesmerize them.' (Graham Greene, HEART OF THE MATTER, set in W. Africa in the 1940s.) You're up there with the lit. greats now Laura with this topic... love yer stuff!
Woah woah. Palmetto bugs? Centipedes? FURRY BUGS IN THE SINK!?!?!?!?!?
Y'all, this is wack.
Whack?
Seriously, you guys it was totally as gross as it sounded. Grosser. I'm still reeling.
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