Cockroach Chronicles: Part Two (Ewww!)

So I didn't creep you out enough yesterday. You're back for more! It's like sniffing a sponge over and over. Or smelling sour milk repeatedly. You just have to go back and make sure it is as bad as you thought it was the first time.

Have you ever stepped on a roach barefoot? More specifically, a roach on carpet, while in your half asleep 2am stupor trying to make it to the toilet? Roaches are cold. For three long years I flipped on the bright hallway light to make sure there were no roaches dying on the path to the toilet. I would say 50 percent of the time, there was one there acting as a road block.

But that pales in comparison to what happened next.

We made plans to go hike a water fall with friends. We got ready and went to pick them up. We made the hour drive to the falls, got out and began the hike. It took about 45 minutes to get to the falls. In all, from the time I put my shoes on earlier that day, until I reached the waterfall, it was 4 hours.

I hate wrinkles in my socks. I kept feeling like there was a wrinkle in the heel of my sock. I pulled and pulled but there was no possible way it was a wrinkle. I thought maybe it was a tiny little twig or piece of straw that wedged its way in there. I suffered through, trying to ignore it, like my mom always told me when I had sock-wrinkle phobia as a child. When we got to the top of the trail, I'd had enough. I took my shoe off to see what was causing me the discomfort.
Do you see where I'm going with this???

It was a big, fat, juicy cockroach! I started hopping backwards on one foot, with my hands over my ears, shrieking like a crazy girl. My shrieks turned into howls and tears and actual retching. My husband and our two friends thought I was having some kind of a seizure. Everyone at the previously peaceful falls watched in horror. I was convulsing and managed to spit out, "R-r-r-r- (retch) ROACH. ROACH. SHOE." (retch again). My husband and his friend ran over to the shoe, kicked out the roach, and grabbed some rocks and started stoning it to death. I will never, EVER forget how many direct hits it took until it finally died.

The creepiest thing is that it was trapped under my heel for four hours, and it was still alive. (Now is not the time to tell me that horrid story about how roaches live for a week with their heads cut off. I already YouTubed it. I cannot discuss.)

I ripped the contaminated sock off, refused to put my shoe back on, and hobbled the rest of the way back to the car.

And if you mention "sock", chances are.....I have a roach story to go with it. Fast forward a few years. Parent's house again. Put on a fresh pair of socks to wear around their house (no shoes rule). Something was tickling my pinkie toe. I screamed and said it felt like a fly was in my sock! My sister said, "With your luck, it's probably not a fly, but a roach." I ripped that sock off and there was a baby roach that was cut in half but still alive. Cut in half by my pinkie toenail. And did I mention, still alive?! And you know I don't have to actually type the word 'screaming' for you to visualize me now.

So the last roach story of Cockroach Chronicles: Part Two, happened again on a summer's evening at my parents' house. We were coming to get the kids after an evening of house hunting without them. My son was a whiny baby, and he was crying and looking out the living room window as we pulled up. I got out of the car, walked up and rapped on the window and make funny faces at him to make him laugh. I swatted away some mosquitoes and moths that were hangin' out near the porch light.

I walked in the door. I felt something run across my face and down my neck. I didn't need to let me imagination run, because my sister's eyes were as giant as saucers, mouth wide open, no sound coming out, staring at me. I did the Roach Run (again visualize Jennifer Grey in Ferris Bueller's Day Off), slapping my face and screaming at the top of my lungs. I slapped that foul beast off my face, it slid across the kitchen floor, looked at me (it's true!) and ran back into the living room.

What is it with me and the bug I fear the most? I can honestly say I have never eaten one on accident, and if I did, you better believe you'd never see another blog post again. I'd be gone. Dead, that is. I know I'd have a heart attack. And if my children ever ate one, well, I'd have to get new ones. Not really. But I might not look at them the same again.

And why are there so many stories about roaches entering body orifices at night? Ears, noses, blehhhh,...and even stories of them eating eye lases and toenails. I. Have. To. Stop. This. Post. Now. For. Sanity's. Sake.
Enjoy: