Despite the fact that this month marks 18 months since I
separated from my ex, and I’ve dated several other guys in the interim, there
are definitely things I miss about him. Though there will always be inside
jokes and little intimate couple moments to remember with bittersweet
nostalgia, shallowly enough, the things I miss most at this point are the
functional, somewhat impersonal things about living with a man: opening stuck
jars, getting the trash taken out in the rain with the artful use of some puppy
dog eyes (or maybe a flash of boob), and most importantly bug killing abilities.
A bit of back story here: I’m not afraid of most bugs. I used
to catch spiders (some of which I am now aware were actually brown recluses.
Oops.), and leave them in my brother’s room when we were kids since I knew he
was super scared of them. Other than being mildly annoyed by the itching,
things like fire ants or mosquitoes don’t bother me, and despite a healthy
wariness of stingers, I don’t have any actual fear of bees or wasps. No, my
main problem is with fucking roaches. You have to understand that growing up in
the suburbs in a state where there were hard freezes half the year, I wasn’t
exposed to cockroaches often, if ever. They were things that dirty people had
in their houses, but they weren’t, like, a THING.
When I came to college, however, I realized, that not only
are they a THING, they’re a BIG THING. I try not to be afraid, I really do, but
the roaches down here aren’t like anything else in the world. They’re freakily
fast, large, and aggressive. Oh, so you’ve got some Raid? That’s nice. You
better have a hell of an aim, because those mother fuckers are flying RIGHT AT
YOUR FACE the minute you start spraying. No, they don’t bite or sting or actually
harm people in any way, but they’re pretty freaking disgusting and I have a
true physical reaction when confronted with one. I shake, squeal, and run to
another room. I’ve dropped full baskets of laundry, and refused to enter rooms
(in a four room apartment) for DAYS because of these things. In college, my
friend and I abandoned a futon and had to be rescued by a (future) Navy SEAL
because there was a roach in the way. I never lean against trees or move trash
cans at night because there might be one there. Basically, I’m ridiculously terrified
of them.
This, of course, is where my ex came in handy. He would
laugh at me, tell me condescendingly that it was probably more afraid of me
than I was of it, and then promptly kill any roach-y looking intruder. After
almost three years of having my own personal roach defender, was poorly
prepared for that aspect of life on my own. The first week alone in my
apartment, I found a dead one on its back in my closet. I couldn’t even bring
myself to pick it up, so I dropped a hiking boot on top of it until I got
around to buying a vacuum and could suck it up, away and out of sight. Fortunately
in the eighteen months since then, roach sightings have been rare, and by the
time I see them, they’ve typically been dismembered by my cats.
All of that changed last week. I don’t know if it was a
shift in the weather, the lack of rain or what, but after a year and a half of
fewer than five roach sightings, I’ve had four in the last week.
Holy. Mother. Of. God.
The first one was late on a Tuesday night, while I was
baking cupcakes for work. I didn’t want to spray Raid around food, and the cats
were seemingly uninterested in some dismembering action (well-fed, lazy
bitches), so I knew I’d have to do the dirty work myself. Plus, it was blocking
my way out of the kitchen so I really didn’t have a choice. It was then, as I
was simultaneously squealing, shouting obscenities at my good-for-nothing cats,
and desperately beating at the creepy son of a bitch with a broom, that I had a
hardcore moment of missing my ex. I wouldn’t be doing this, I thought to myself
as I vacuumed up the various roach pieces later, if I just found a nice
boyfriend.
The second one was later the same night, just as my
adrenaline had come down from Battle Roach I. This one was in the hallway, so
it got a good dosage of Raid, as did the patio in front of my front door. Just
in case. I barely slept at all that night, and kept dreaming of waking up to
one crawling on my face.
Three days later, I’d managed to convince myself that Roach-gate
2012 was a fluke, when I found another one in the kitchen. I was pissed, and
beat this one with a shoe. I promptly logged into Amazon and purchased a bottle
of Boric Acid.
The final straw, though, was this morning. I’m getting old,
which apparently entails having to wake up to pee at random times during the
night, so at 4:30 am, I sighed, turned on my bedside lamp, and swung my feet
onto the floor. And that was when I saw it. I wasn’t wearing my glasses, but I
didn’t need to; I knew what it was. A brown blob the size of a quarter in the
corner of the room? It could only be one of THEM. I fumbled for my glasses on
the bedside table, not looking away until I received full visual confirmation.
My bedroom. My sanctuary. It had been infiltrated by my
nemeses. What did it want? There was no food or water… I had nothing. And yet
there it was. And something inside me snapped.
“I’m so sick of these motherfucking cockroaches in this
motherfucking apartment!!!” my inner Samuel L. Jackson exclaimed as I impaled
the little asshole with a patent leather high heel that was lying in the middle
of my bedroom floor. Afterwards I stood there, panting, trembling, and mad as a hell.
And it was then that I knew I was finally free. I don’t need
my ex to kill my roaches, because I can do it.
Like a motherfucking BOSS.
Gotta love closure...
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