If It's Not One It's Twelve, or a Million
Thursday, March 18, 2010 at 11:07PM I will let you know up front that this post may be revolting. It might make you want to hurl. If you don't think you can handle the grossness, then please head on over to a nice blog like I Heart Faces, or Miz Booshay (she sometimes writes for PW's photo blog and has a fantastic, sweet blog of her own) where you can find happy smiling faces and lovely words of encouragement.
This is your last chance...
Okay, tough guys. You're in for it.
I have twirled this post around in my head all day. There are so many angles I could take. I think I'll just start at the beginning. Actually, the beginning I already went through...the roach in our bathroom. And you know what? Just since I'm being honest here, that wasn't even really the beginning. The very beginning of this particular portion of my tale was a couple of days before that, when Christian came upon a roach in our kitchen; it was on its back, dying. Not fast enough, let me tell you. After that incident I called the company that we have come treat our home for these horrible pests (oh, that is not a strong enough word, but I'll leave it be) and we set up a time for the guy to come back and retreat. I mean, re-treat. We didn't want him to leave, no sir, we wanted him to stay! And take care of these ------- for us so that there could be peaceful sleeping once again.
Here is a little backstory. We live in Dallas. We happen to live in a very nice part of Dallas, too...I'm kind of embarrassed to say that there are homes in our neighborhood (most of them, in fact) that are worth $1,000,000 or more. We could never afford to buy here...we are just blessed to live in a house that the church owns. We benefit from living so close to work (and every other thing that we do except go to the store. And get gas, I guess.) and they benefit from having a pastor live in the house. Otherwise they rent it out for the value that the area dictates. So...fancy neighborhood...but the thing is, the roaches don't care. They don't care if you have a million dollars or not. They don't care if you are a good housekeeper or not. They don't care if your yard is landscaped by professionals or not. They just want to party in your house like it's 1999. And that is why we have a roach problem.
I can't believe I'm telling you this. IT. IS. SO. DISGUSTING. Please don't think we are very dirty. In fact, I heard once that roaches are the cleanest animals on the planet, and that they constantly groom themselves.
That was a bit overboard, wasn't it? I really did hear that, but you probably didn't want to hear that. Sorry. Now you're sucked in, though, right?
So. This morning I was going to take care of a few things before the guy came to check out what the problem could be. It had been a (wonderfully) long time since we had seen any roach activity, and so for two to show up like that (and they were big...not babies) meant trouble. I was standing in the schoolroom and Eliana just happened to be right next to me; for those of you who love all the little details, I was getting ready to put on a new pair of pants and as I looked down to put one foot in the leg I saw a dark spot right at Eliana's toes. My eyes focused on that spot and I'll be a bootlegger if that spot wasn't a roach creeping right up onto her foot.
I cannot tell you.
I screamed and picked her up quickly, making the roach jump and turn the other way. It ran over to the wall and hid there. It had better, because it knew what was coming. Oh, yes, I sprayed that nasty thing just like I did the other one.
But it wouldn't die! It kept moving! Up the wall, over to the corner, up the little chair that I had folded up near the wall. I may or may not have called it a bad name under my breath.
It finally felt the effects of my attack, and flipped over; this was the sure sign of impending death. Hallelujah!
But boy, did the house smell like bleach! I know. It's terrible. I am a bad person for polluting the air, and who knows what else, with the toxic chemical...but as soon as you figure out how to rid the world of this particular evil, then I will put my bleach bottle away and not touch it again.
Until someone pukes...then I'm getting back out.
There was nothing for me to do but get the kids out of the house. I called Mike at work and told him the predicament: the toxic fumes, the dead roach, the guy coming. He told me to leave (I think he felt really bad for me that I actually witnessed a roach CRAWLING ON MY BABY'S FOOT) and he would take care of it.
And so I headed out and went to two of my favorite places in the world...
and
Yes, I was just there...but I've said it before and I'll say it again. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Everyone was fairly happy to get food and have lunch, but when I pulled into the Target parking lot, Christian's enthusiasm waned. So much so that he told me he hated shopping! Can you believe it? But not Michaela...she loves to go to Target.
That girl is as happy as a clam. A glam clam in front of the cam with that necklace on she's such a ham.
I'm silly, so I had my camera with me. It had the telephoto lens on it from our bird-watching, but I was smart enough to bring the bag with my other lens and big fatty flash, so I switched the lens out and took a couple more pictures. When I put the regular lens on, Eliana said,"It's the little one? Is it mine? Can I have it?"
Goof. She even held out her arms so that I could give her my camera. I guess if it's little it belongs to her. She is two, after all. I don't know how I keep forgetting that everything belongs to her.
Now. Christian loves having his picture taken almost as much as he loves to go to Target, so...I present to you "Fruit Face"...
We finished up lunch and went inside; there was much fun to be had...
I got some things for myself. A lot of my tops don't fit anymore; it seemed to be a combination of shrinkage plus the old style which made for shirts that were too short. I also am never able to find a nice top to wear to church. Not that fitting in is that important when you go to church, but I do want to wear something nicer than my cotton t-shirts. The ladies here tend to dress...well, pretty nicely. Boutiquey. Nordstromy.
(I have to try things on, but I am looking forward to dressing up again. I think it will be fun. I also got a pair of Chucks. Not high-tops, but brown low-tops. I am excited about those too. Aren't you glad to know that?)
(Chucks always make me think of my college roommate. Hi, roomie!)
We headed back home once I was finished torturing Christian perusing many of the fine products that Target displays for eager shoppers like myself. We got to the house just as the bug guy arrived. We had just enough time to grab Michaela's piano books, run her up to the church (all one block!) and then scoot back home; I circled one more block because there was a detour to get to the back of our house where I park. Once I got inside I found Mike and then asked him if the dude was still around.
Mike said he was already gone. I was like,"What?! That was so fast! What did he do?" Mike said,"Well, I guess I'll have to tell you."
That sounded like nothing but good news was coming my way, don't you think?
Since this is getting a wee bit long (like eight paragraphs ago...are you even still reading this ridiculous story?) I am going to talk fast, so listen up...
Basically, in the time while I was gone, three more roaches showed up in our bathroom-he killed them all. The bug guy showed up and figured out where they were coming from, went down in our cellar (yuck, yuck, yuck-not the laughing kind of yucks there, folks) and sprayed a NEST he found and I think he sprayed down there in general, too. And then he left. All in the time it took for me to run Michaela up one block to the church and circle back home! But he took care of the problem, at least for now.
Of course, when you spray roaches, they COME OUT TO DIE. Why? Why can't they just curl up and take their final breaths in the privacy of their own stupid nests down in the bowels of my house? Oh, I know! It's so that I have a final story to include in this blog post.
Michaela suddenly began yelling,"Mommy! Come quick!" I, being the highly intelligent woman that I am, deduced very easily what her yelling was all about (just based on the rest of the day, you know). When I got to her in the hallway, Eliana was with her and Michaela told me that Eliana had said,"Look, there's another one!" This time it was kind of a small one, the baby looking for all the grown-ups that had met their maker already. We all watched it move slowly, it was feeling the effects of the poison; it headed toward our stairs. I felt frozen. I wanted Mike to come and work his magic once more. I really don't like killing them. It actually had enough strength to head up one step. As it neared the top of the stair Eliana said,"It's going upstairs!" It didn't have a chance to get very far, though, because I summoned my hero, Mike, and he came to my aid with his handy-dandy roach annihilator (his shoe...have you seen his shoe? It's a pretty serious weapon.) and...
the roach was toast.
But not the kind you eat. This is what the girls thought of the idea of eating the roach...
Yeah. We're one in a million, folks, one in a million.
One family in the middle of a million roaches, apparently. But we'll take care of them, even if it's one at a time.
if you dare
Reader Comments (5)
I think it's pretty obvious that you have to move now.
Gross.
You just convinced me that my miserable northern climate might have its perks.
Mindee, I know. I'm terribly sorry for continuing to write about this...but I did give a warning!
I used to think that I could never live up north, where it's cold for sooo long and the sun hides away for months and months, but if I might escape the roaches there... Well, wouldn't that be funny if we ended up in Alaska? ha
Oh man. That would keep me up at night too. On a happier note, Chick-Fil-A and Target are 2 of our most favorite spots. And Chucks? Can I just say that every member of our house has matching black Chuck Taylors? Although, Rob feels funny about wearing them if I have mine on too. It's always a race to see who's going to put theirs on first and negate the other one's opportunity to wear them.
you need to read the ben and katie and their rat blog. very similar. horrifying.
Hi roomie! I smiled when I read that you bought Chucks. Yay! I am so sorry about the roach thing. I would be totally freaked out too. We have ant issues here, but I will take those over roaches. I mean, roaches are just so grody. I am glad that you married someone with a killer shoe! :)