Travel Bugs Me

So my girlfriend and I decided to drive to Orlando, Florida to visit my brother and his fiancee and have a nice vacation. These are the details let me show them to you.


Long trip down, lots of Denny's breakfasts.

We stay there have fun.

We head home tanned and happy.

We get home and reacquaint ourselves with my 80 year old mom who was happy to see us and our Quaker parrot who was pissed off that we came back because she thought she was finally the owner of the house (and my mom, but that's another story).

So. We finally decide to go to bed. I mean, 18 hours of driving in two days and all that. Yeah we stopped. We stopped at a Comfort Inn in South Carolina to sleep for a night before the second (nine hour) drive to Brooklyn. This is an important fact to remember. There WILL not be a test.

So we are home. I'm awake, the girlfriend is asleep. A great banging and fury comes from upstairs and wakes my girlfriend (whom I will call GF from now on, cause I'm lazy).

GF wakes: What was that?
Me: Mom is midnight bowling.

More slamming and rumbling from above.

GF: Go see what's going on.
Me: No U.

So GF goes upstairs. I go to sleep. For about a minute or two. GF comes back downstairs.

GF: Wake up.
Me: No.
GF: Your mom saw a giant flying cockroach in her livingroom.
Me: GTFO
GF: What?
Me: What the fuck are you talking about?
GF: Your mom saw a giant flying bug. She says it's behind the couch. She's trying to kill it with a broom.
Me: Yeah, great. Mom finally lost it.

But inside me was a cold core of fear. You see, in Florida they have a certain kind of lovely creature called a Palmetto Bug. It is, essentially, a giant flying cockroach. But... (wavy lines here for a flashback, picture it okay? Flashback time)

Brother: Man you would not believe these suckers. They can literally crawl up through the drain. We keep plugs in the drains until we actually have to use the sink or something. And they are HUGE, like two inches long. Almost impossible to kill.

Me: Yeah so?

Brother: And the fuckers can FLY!

I am not happy.

It seems that we had brought a large flying cockroach home with us. I did not, at first, believe that this was possible. Our two suitcases were hermetically sealed. We are lazy and did not open them yet. While we had also brought home some souvenirs, we immediately opened those bags and got out the swag.

I decided that my mom had seen a moth. A huge moth.

We went back to bed. Yet still I was on edge.

We have a fan in our bedroom. It blows air. This air makes things move. One of the things that it makes move is the plastic bag that I have lining my little trashcan next to my bed. Every now and then the bag would make a sound. This sound annoyed the crap out of me. So I tucked the bag down into the trashcan.

Now all was silent. And I could get ready for sleep.

Then I heard the same sound again. So I rolled over in bed to check that I hadn't left a bit of the plastic bag hanging over the edge of the trashcan.

And I saw a giant cockroach the size of Nebraska running under my bed. VERY QUICKLY.

Well. Time slowed as I considered my options.

Here I must tell you that I have been in the same time slowing situation at least once before. I was hit by a car. I was running across a street in Manhattan called LaGuardia Place. It's a big street. I miscalculated. I looked to my left. And at that moment I KNEW I wasn't going to make it. It was so slow. The car coming. Me trying to run faster. Me thinking, "I'm just not going to make it. Oh shit." Then the last thing I remember was the sound of me hitting the hood of the car.

Anyway. So this huge roach runs directly under my part of the bed. Time stopped. My thoughts, let me show you them:

This isn't happening. But I can HEAR the fucker. Maybe I should just turn off the light and go to sleep. I can find it tomorrow. Wait, WHAT? Are you fucking kidding? It's a FLYING roach. What if it decides to fly into your face? OR INTO YOUR MOUTH WHILE YOU ARE SNORING? Fuck, you're right, as lazy as you are you have to deal with this NOW. But what do I do? I'm barefoot. What if I put my feet on the floor and it runs over them? Well then I'll shit on it. Because that will make me crap my pants but I'm not wearing pants.

Then I came back to reality. I am going to deal with this NOW. I yam a man!

Me (screaming like a girl): GF get up now.

GF: SnrXXXXXXXX.

Me: Fire, death, disease, Justin Beiber, hell fuck get up goddamn it!

GF: I have to go to work tomorrow leave me alone.

Me: Honey THERE IS A HUGE DEADLY ROACH UNDER OUR BED!

GF (sitting up, looking angry): Will you stop fucking with me I have to..

Me: Get UP. Get out of the BED. Get PAPER TOWELS. Lots of them. Get a GUN. Get NAPALM. Call for a NUCLEAR STRIKE. NOW!

GF: Are you serious?

Me: Yes.

GF: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

At this point I will admit, I'm a bit non-plussed. I weigh close to 275 pounds without my huge Swiss Army knife in my back pocket. I was sure that I killed the sucker.

But now I understand that I just pissed it off.

This was turning out to be a bad night.

I told the GF to bring me the whole roll of paper towels.

A moment. Why do we, as a species, think that paper towels are a deterrent to bugs? My theory is that smaller roaches are bred by their commanders to be towel fodder. So that when one of the big bosses are confronted by paper towels, they can just laugh it off and continue on. It is my belief that we, by using paper towels, are breeding towel resistant bugs. Watch The Floors! Be Vigilant!

So. Maglite in hand I bravely step back. My GF bravely assists me by handing me the paper towels and running to the bathroom which is miles from the bedroom.

I get a huge wad of paper towels started.

The roach decides that it's best to run out from the foot of the bed over the carpet remnant that we have there, and hide beneath the huge box that contains books and my old Commodore computer.

I turn and gracefully fall on my face.

Because the carpet remnant is on a linoleum floor.

The CARPET jams itself under the box that the cagey bug was heading under.

And crushes it.

I land like a swan on my chin, with my face inches from the pulsing abdomen of the bastard.

The GF runs in to check on me and see if she has to evacuate the house and sell it immediately to flying cockroach loving people.

I meanwhile, being brave, crush the part of the roach that I can see.

Over and over and over and over again.

I finally drag the sucker out from under the box, I lift the box to make sure that there isn't even one iota of roach that might eventually replicate itself.

Then I do the unthinkable.

I flush the PAPER TOWEL WAD. Yes folks. I FLUSHED a PAPER TOWEL.

And I flushed and flushed and flushed and flushed.

Then I poured drain cleaner into the toilet and flushed a few more time just in case.

Then I stayed up all night hearing skittering sounds. Serious. All fucking night.


That is all.


OR IS IT?



Addendum: The funny thing is that it's not yet Palmetto Bug time in Florida. The whole time I was there all I saw was a few lizards and an armadillo at a convenience store.

BUT.

When we were bringing our luggage back to the car after our stop in South Carolina the GF pointed out to me, a huge cockroach that was crushed on the asphalt in the parking lot.

My theory:

The bug was in the car the whole time from SC to NYC. It might have been in the huge pile of crap that we had in the back seat of the car. Hey, we were on vacation.

We also had a few (lots) of clothes on the back seat. When we got home the GF brought a bunch of dirty clothes into the house. She dropped them on the floor of the hall connecting the upstairs (mom's apartment) and our apartment.

Think of me like House here or Sherlock Holmes.

At some point the sucker ate all of the food it could find on the floor of the car. So it decided to snuggle with our dirty laundry. Then the GF picked up the clothes. A classic case of a vector. So the sucker finds itself in our house. It can fly and so flies upstairs looking for more food.

Instead it finds my mother who goes at it with a broom. (And later I find out, Raid as well)

Injured, the poor cockroach, now unable to fly, decides that down is a good strategy. And so it heads downstairs. But FAST. Trust me, those suckers are FAST.

Why doesn't it go to the basement? Fucked if I know.

It decides, probably, to come into our bedroom where we have a parrot cage. You see Quaker parrots are notorious for being sloppy eaters and so there is parrot food on the floor. We meant to clean but, come on driving and all that, we'd clean tomorrow. See?

Anyway. It's all over.

Except that I STILL have nightmares. Really.