i am woman, hear me shriek

One of the many dangers of living alone as a single woman is that sometimes creepy crawly bugs and assorted other gross things happen. Yes, bugs HAPPEN. Especially when you live in an old midtown house built in 1920 where every nook and cranny is practically an open front door with a welcome mat and a cozy lamp on inviting them to come on in and stay a while.

And when these bugs happen, as a single woman, no matter how much you scream and writhe, no big strong man is going to burst forth from your floor boards to come and lay waste to the vermin so at some point you've got to put on your big girl panties, have a little sip from your box-o-wine and kill the damn thing.

And in the interest of feminism and everything, I'm sure there are all kinds of women who would not DREAM of needing a man or anyone to kill a bug or open a jar or anything for them, by God, and believe me, deep in my heart I'm so happy for them. Really. Truly. But I am not one of them. Not as long as there is a chair to stand on while I scream and point and babble, I will never be one of them.

What I do know, though, as of Saturday night, is that comparatively speaking I'm really not so bad. Because Saturday night I got to see my friend (and upstairs neighbor, as I may have mentioned) Megan react to the sight of a cockroach.

I was helping her move an extra window unit that was in my closet up to her apartment, and as she was looking around in the kitchen for an extension cord I spotted the wiggly little antennae of a roach sticking out from behind the fold of a jacket that was hanging on the back of a chair in her living room. And y'all, I may have squealed a little bit in pointing the thing out, but I have NEVER seen such a reaction out of anyone to a roach as what came out of Megan.

It was hysterical. When the roach fell from the jacket (after I beat him out of it with a women's magazine, IRONY) he ran underneath the couch. My bug philosophy is kind of out of sight, out of mind, but Megan was not having it. She said she wouldn't be able to sit in the living room not knowing if he might crawl up on her shoulder at any minute to say YOO HOO THERE FINE LASSY! Fancy to meet YOU here!

She pulls out the couch, and naturally the little guy goes scurrying. He runs for the kitchen, and I follow him, but the magazine is big and unwieldy and I keep missing him and causing him to scurry more and eventually he runs underneath the stove. I commented that at least now he was in the kitchen, and not the living room, and I headed downstairs. Not five minutes later, as I was getting ready to doze in front of Flight of the Conchords, I hear a thunderous sound coming from upstairs, from one end of the house to the other, a few strong THWACKs and then silence.

I hear my phone buzz. It's a text message, from Megan. "I got him!"

Later that night I lent Megan my roach spray so she could give her floorboards and kitchen a good dose of the stuff. And so yesterday, when I was washing dishes and a relative of the recently deceased came scurrying across my backsplash, I reached under the sink for the only other thing down there that wasn't cooking spray. Windex.

And I sprayed that little bastard with Windex until, dazed and confused and stoned on glass cleaner, he fell down into the sink, where I finished the job with a nice steady stream of hot Memphis water.

Only he was too big to go down the drain. So I grabbed a table knife and stabbed at him until all his little pieces washed down, bit by bit. Take that, roaches! I am your NEMESIS! I will spray you with whatever I got, I don't even need no fancy roach spray bitches! I am an innovator of bug murder.

Of course, that knife is still sitting in the sink. Because frankly I may never use it again.

Roach guts. Shudder.


cheers,
elizabeth