At first glance, the thing skittering across the kitchen floor appeared to be the size of a small wildebeast. When my cognitive senses kicked in, I realized that it was a cockroach and I screamed.
My husband jerked out of his lazy, Sunday afternoon in front of the tv, jumped to his feet with a muttered curse, What the....... he began and then saw the thing. With enviable presence of mind, he calmly slammed his boot heel down and ground the vile thing into skeletal remains. It made a crackling noise that made me want to retch.
I do not consider myself a woman prone to nerves or delicacy. As a child, I had watched autopsies, baited my own fishing line, played with lizards, seen kittens come into the world. I don't faint at the sight of blood or panic easily and I'm not susceptible to sudden vapors so my reaction to this nasty but non-threatening insect was a puzzle. Granted, I'd been startled by it's sudden appearance and granted, it was an impressive size, but nevertheless it was still only a cockroach - a survivor if ever there was one, radiation-resistant and for all practical purposes, indestructible. None of which bothered me, I finally realized, as much as it's ability to skitter. And there, I had, at long last, identified the problem. I don't like things that skitter - they make me jumpy and they move so fast that it's impossible to predict what direction they'll go in which means that it could very well be over my bare foot. And that is what I'm really afraid of.
My husband jerked out of his lazy, Sunday afternoon in front of the tv, jumped to his feet with a muttered curse, What the....... he began and then saw the thing. With enviable presence of mind, he calmly slammed his boot heel down and ground the vile thing into skeletal remains. It made a crackling noise that made me want to retch.
I do not consider myself a woman prone to nerves or delicacy. As a child, I had watched autopsies, baited my own fishing line, played with lizards, seen kittens come into the world. I don't faint at the sight of blood or panic easily and I'm not susceptible to sudden vapors so my reaction to this nasty but non-threatening insect was a puzzle. Granted, I'd been startled by it's sudden appearance and granted, it was an impressive size, but nevertheless it was still only a cockroach - a survivor if ever there was one, radiation-resistant and for all practical purposes, indestructible. None of which bothered me, I finally realized, as much as it's ability to skitter. And there, I had, at long last, identified the problem. I don't like things that skitter - they make me jumpy and they move so fast that it's impossible to predict what direction they'll go in which means that it could very well be over my bare foot. And that is what I'm really afraid of.
Time, of course, has passed since that day. I still see the occasional cockroach but I no longer scream, I simply crush them into oblivion without the slightest qualm and dispose of their wretched broken shells with a sense of satisfaction and higher purpose. House rule: If you skitter, you die.
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