I make fun of other people's fears. But I have my own little secret fear. Not secret anymore, but still...

 

I have always had a very irrational fear of cockroaches. Always. There was a time when I was so scared of them that I wouldn't go into a room that had a cockroach until my mom had gone in and scared it out of the door/window or killed it or told me that she talked to it and it promised to behave nicely. What can I say? I never said it was a rational fear. I am not so scared by them now. And by that I mean that I can approch one from behind a can of Hit.

Anyway. A couple of days ago, I got home at a decent hour and D wasn't back yet, so I had no one to whine about my day to. I turned on the TV. It was stuffy and the fan was stirring up the hot air, so I opened a window and went to get a bottle of water. When I turned around from the fridge, I saw a HUGE cockroach fly in through the window I just opened. It was HUGE. I don't mind small cockroaches. The big ones freak me out.

 

I froze. It went under a pile of cushions. I didn't know what to do. There was no Hit. (D had bought a can of something called Cockroach Stop a couple of weeks ago. But it said Non-Toxic. What is the point? I want it to KILL the damn cockroaches, not make them sneeze! Then I read on and it said "Non-Toxic to humans". Unlike Hit and Baygone which give you death I guess. Then it said, "dehydrates cockroaches and insects from the inside out." Ugh. Does it kill them or make them thirsty??) So I took the Cockroach Stop and a broom and went toward the pile of cushions, gingerly. And nudged it. The roach scampered out and ran toward my room!! No No No. Wrong direction!! So I sprayed a little CS ahead of it and it turned - toward me!!! I ran out of the way and it went to the balcony where we hang clothes to dry. No No not there either. There was no way out of there. So I sprayed some CS again and this time it turned toward the door. Right direction finally, but the door was closed! So I ran ahead of it and opened it. By now it was moving under the influence of CS and seemed a little woozy. It was still not dead. If I had used do much Hit, the damn thing would have died by now. Anyway, it went out of the door without much further ado. Phew. I discarded the weaponry, washed my hands, shut the windows and sat back down in front of the TV.

 

I looked under the bed before I went to sleep. And switched on the light and checked the bathroom before going in.