Cockroaches are odd things. They’re pretty much disgusting on land, but give one some claws, increase its size ten-fold, and you have a delicious treat. Those crabs are clever marketers. Crabs: The cockroach you want to eat.
My sophomore year of college, I decided I needed an apartment, rather than live in the dorms another year. A friend who was in similar need of a place of residence joined me in my quest for a dwelling. We were both pretty poor, so our options were limited. After a brief search, we stumbled across a place we could both afford within walking distance of campus. Just to give you an idea of the quality of this place, our rent was a shocking $150 a month per person.
You should also know something about Milledgeville. During the fall, it is infested with roaches. From about September to November, a walk down the streets after dark results in this disturbing crunching sound. I think the experts will tell you that those are palmetto bugs or water bugs or some nonsense, but when one of those bastards gets in your house, it’s a roach.
Anyway, this apartment Trevor and I rented had one of those massive porcelain sinks in the kitchen. The kind where not only the sink is porcelain, but the backsplash and the side thing where the dish drainer goes is porcelain as well. It was probably about 4 feet wide and I’m sure weighed a couple hundred pounds. It wasn’t attached to a counter, but it was supported by this rickety cabinet. This cabinet, bowed by years of supporting this weight, allowed the sink to lean away from the wall. This created about a one inch gap between the wall and the backsplash, which might as well have been the portal to Hell as far as I’m concerned. Bad things lived down there.
Further compounding this unfortunate bug haven, was the fact that my roommate virtually refused to wash dishes. Ever. He would let them pile up and when he needed a dish, he just washed the one he needed and left the others in dirty-dish purgatory. I’ll probably never win an award for the cleanliness of my household, but know this: for all the clutter laying around my house, I sure as hell wash the dishes.
One fine fall Saturday morning, I intended to cook Angela (you may remember her from the Kiss of Death story) and myself some breakfast. This process was severely hampered by the fact that there were no clean dishes. I cursed under my breath and proceeded to wash out the frying pan so I could scramble some eggs like an American. As soon as I cut the water on and squeezed some soap onto the scrubber, all hell broke loose.
Evidently, the deluge of water pouring over the countless dishes in the sink disturbed the slumber of a gaggle of cockroaches, fat and happy after gorging themselves on pizza scraps. As disturbing as this is, it would have been okay had the roaches simply scattered. But no, one of those little bastards felt it necessary to go all Flavor of Love and accost me.
I was slightly startled by the cockroaches, needless to say, but I didn’t lose my shit until one went kamikaze and flew at my head. I was not aware that cockroaches could fly, let alone possess the mental capacity to propel itself towards the one area of my body where I least wanted it. In the ensuing melee of flailing limbs, Cockroach San made it into my shirt and I screamed like a little bitch. I ripped the t-shirt I was wearing off faster than you’d ever think possible.
A few seconds later, when Angela rushed into the kitchen, I was stomping up and down like a madman on my t-shirt. I guess after a second or two she figured out what happened and started laughing uncontrollably. And so goes the story of my life, but you know what? I’m writing this story here today, and guess who’s no longer with us? La Cucaracha. Go back and tell the others what you saw here today…
