* Terrorist in this case is defined as anything that terrifies me
Last Monday night, Cat came over to drink crappy wine. Oh - did I say crappy? I meant Crapple (which for some reason isn't listed on the website for the "winery" that makes it). We watched Saved! (oh how I love that movie) and caught up on old gossip topics.
While Cat was here, I visited the bathroom and was about to leave when I discovered the world's largest roach (actual length: somewhere between 1 inch and 3 feet) chilling out on the wall right next to the door frame, waiting to fly at me as I exited. I was trapped! So I did what any clear-thinking person would do: I grabbed my can of spray deodorant, stood up on the edge of the bathtub, and grabbed the mop that lives in the bathroom. Well, after I sprayed the terrorist, he started to run towards the corner. That's when I started in with the mop. I jousted with the terrorist until he fell off the wall and into a canvas bag. Then I banged on the bag a few more times, despite losing visual contact with the target. I knew that I had hit it with the deodorant, and at least made contact with the mop, so even if it wasn't dead I was pretty sure it was fatally wounded.
The roach never reappeared that night. Scott looked for it when he got home from work (a 16 hour shift, mind you) and didn't find it. For the last few days, the giant industrial size can of RAID has lived on my nightstand, just in case I got attacked in the night.
Fast-forward to last night. I got home from work and headed straight to the bathroom (as is my custom - I loathe employee bathrooms). After peeing and changing into my pajamas, I was standing in front of the sink brushing my hair when I spotted something behind me. Now, since I've been seeing phantom roaches in every shadow ever since Monday, I didn't immediately panic. I turned around and there he was - my nemesis - at the top of the wall in the corner of the shower - the opposite corner from where I had last seen him. And then I panicked.
The plan came to me almost immediately. I closed the shower curtain, ran to the bedroom to get the RAID ("why oh why did I ever take it out of the bathroom???") and ran back to the bathroom. I sprayed the RAID up into the corner for a good 15-30 seconds until the roach started twitching and fell from the wall. He landed on the top shelf of the corner unit in our bathtub and I could hear buzzing and twitching as he bounced around between Scott's bottles of face wash. And then I closed the bathroom door and waited for Scott to get home.
And this time, the damn roach stayed where I left him. He had wedged himself between the shelf and the wall, and was still twitching when Scott flushed him down the toilet (apparently it flipped off Scott and yelled something along the lines of "I'll be back..." as it was swirling towards the sewage treatment plant). Then I felt bad because Scott had to wash the RAID off of all of his various containers. But at least I warned him that he would need to do it.
I still did a full bathroom inspection this morning before I got in the shower. It seemed the sensible thing to do. And I probably will continue to do so for the next few days. Because that's how you stop terrorists: vigilance and 1/2 can of RAID.
2 comments:
I see now how I should have considered that wolf spider as a terrorist. I reacted much the same way as you did with the evil roach except there was no Scott so I had to kill the thing myself or move.
Wonderful story - love the nablopomo randomizer.
Remember when you killed the giant roach when I lived over there? I think you killed 3 of them ... it was right after I was exterminated, and all that stuff did was make them "speed." You cursed at them as you killed them! If you're still scared, I recommend a bomb/fogger.
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