A Late Night Visitor

Last night, around 12:30, I was laying in bed, reading a book, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something darting around on the floor. “Hm, is there a small mammal in my apartment?” I thought to myself. I am just fine with mammals and, at first, felt no sense of panic or dread. In fact, I am actually fine with almost all beasts, with the obvious exception of my nemesis, the spider. Previously, in my experience, I have no problem with mice, rats, cockroaches, flies (unless I accidently think they are spiders), snakes, frogs, toads, etc. As long as there are no spiders around, I am brave as an . . . ox?

So, I rolled over, assuming it was going to be a mouse and I would shoo it out of the apartment or even just roll back over and let the mouse do its thing undisturbed. Unfortunately, as you have probably guessed from the above illustration, this was no mouse. It was actually the largest cockroach I have ever seen (also only the 2nd I have ever seen).

Take a journey back in time for a moment to a week ago when my friend Kate and I were in my kitchen and I found a cockroach by the sink. I was startled for a moment becuase we had never had one before in this apartment – but then I promptly hit it with the flat side of a knife and that was the end of it. Kate then launched into a tirade about how this was the SMALLEST roach she had ever seen and that they got MUCH, MUCH bigger. I didn’t want to believe her since this roach on the sink looked pretty big to me. She also mentioned that . . . . . . THEY COULD FLY!

They can fly, They can fly, They can fly. While staring at this cockroach on the floor – this roach about the length of my hand and half the width – all I could hear in my head, pounding over and over again, was “They can fly.”

I have never felt “spider-terror” from any other earthly beast. “Spider-Terror” in my new medical terms, is characterized by: sudden tachycardia, hypertension, pupil dilation, tunnel-vision (usually focused on the spider itself), a great deal of blood flow is diverted from the viscera to the heart muscle and skeletal muscles, diaphoresis (the stinky, stressed-out kind), delusions that the spider on the floor will soon afix itself to my face, and most disturbingly, sensory hallucinations that there are spiders all over my body, tangled in my hair, in my mouth, and crawling in my underwear.

Spider-Terror has actually once led me to . . . car in a mud bank . . . standing in the rain, knee deep in mud crying . . . policeman searching my car for a spider . . . more crying. . . . inability to re-enter car. . . really annoyed policeman. But that is a different story – a story about spiders and not cockroaches.

Spider-Terror didn’t set in immediately. I stared at the roach for awhile trying to think of a game plan. It was just sitting there, and while it was grotesque, I wasn’t terribly horrified . . . yet. Then, it ran. It ran like lightning – faster than anything I have ever seen. It was under the bed in less than a blink of an eye. Spider-Terror began to set in.

I needed a plan.

Part of this story should also focus on my fear of squishing things. It’s not any no-kill philosophy. I don’t mind killing. With poisen, for example. That way, the beast stays in one piece and looks alive, but is still dead. Squishing on the other hand makes a horrible crunching sound and sends goop jetting out of the beast’s body. So squishing this roach was ENTIRELY out of the question.

I ran to the kitchen and got my tools. An old tupperware that used to hold Indian food. A broom. A curved umbrella handle. A floppy binder (you know the ones that are binders, but with floppy, firm plastic covers. A pair of scissors. A heavy book. A headlamp.

First I moved the bed across the room (which, in my one room studio means about a foot away from the wall). With the headlamp on, I crouched down and located the roach – ready to leap up on the coffee table if he ran. Which he did. Several times.

He seemed to be attracted to the beam of light, so I coaxed him out from under the bed and hit him with the bristle side of the broom. I hoped this would stun him and NOT squish him. I was half right. The broom flipped him on his back and paralyzed one of his back legs, but unfortunately, a little bit of goop came out – near the paralyzed limb. Then with the curved handle of the umbrella, I dragged him into my reach. I unfortunately flipped him back on to his feet as well and saw that, though injured, he was definitely still mobile. Slower, but mobile.

I moved fast and brough the tupperware down on top of him. I placed the book on top for good measure – and thank god, because he started to stick his antennae out from underneath, in an effort to escape. I am sure he was strong enough – even after the broom stunning – to flip the tupperware.

At this point, I called my dear friend Liz because I felt like I was having a heart attack and really needed someone to talk me down. Which she did very well. My choices at this point? Leave him under the tupperware until he dies of starvation – but who knows how long it takes to starve a cockroach. OR. Find an ingenious way to get the tupperware lid on tight and then throw him out the kitchen window.

Why out the window? I couldn’t bear the thought of him being in the building. Even if down the trash shute – six flights below. Plus the trash compacter would squish him thus violating the no squishing rule. Flush down the toilet? I couldn’t bare the thought of him swimmng and then flying out of the toilet. While throwing him out the window was littering, these were desperate times. And he would remain tighly lidded in his tupperware this way.

I cut one of the plastic covers off of the binder so I would have something firm, but thin, to slip under the tupperware. It was very close, but I managed to get the plastic sheet underneath the cockroach with him still enclosed in the plastic dome. Then – and I realize this explanation takes some concentration to imagine – then I slipped the plastic lid to the tupperware under the binder cover, careful not to allow for any gaps where he could escape. Finally, I slowly pulled out the plastic sheet so that now the tupperware was lined up with the lid. I quickly snapped the lid on tight, flipped the tupperware over and launched it out my kitchen window as planned.

I guess the story should end with me hitting someone standing below, but it doesn’t. The coast was clear, the cockroach gone, and I called Liz again for another dose of moral support. The whole adventure took about an hour and at the end, I was left to sleep and have nightmares of cockroaches in my bed.