There Are Roaches in Alabama

There are roaches in Alabama. I thought I left them in the woods of Florida, but alas, I opened the pantry door of the bathroom and sudden movement in my peripheral unveiled the ugly truth that yes, indeed, there are roaches in Alabama.
Let’s get one thing straight: I hate roaches. And most bugs for that matter. They run around my house, rummaging through the darkness, flaunting their translucent, putrid brown exo-skeletons and even sometimes take flight through one of my rooms. Why on earth God would give these horrid critters such a beautiful gift of flying is beyond me. Basically, roaches are just horrid.
Let’s get one more thing straight. I am no sissy. I have climbed high on rooftops to salvage new Frisbees, crossed muddy ravines to save kickballs and chase run-away cats, I even saved a small child from a foamy-mouthed dog once at the beach. Okay, so it was a Chihuahua who took a dive in the foamy waters and got scared, but nonetheless, I have a spine. So why two inches of a creepy crawly bug freaks me out, I’m not sure. Perhaps it brings back haunting childhood memories. Like the time I was seven and put on my shoe, knowing something felt weird but assuming it was a leaf, when said ‘leaf’ came running up my leg and did circles around my calf until I swatted it off and ran. Or the time when I was seven and I put on my nightgown, felt an awkward tag under my right armpit and thought the gown was just getting too tight, until a roach scurried down my waist and took flight into my closet. Perhaps it is those not-so-fond memories that lead me to run very quickly in the opposite direction of the first sign of a cockroach.
Besides, this ‘Bama roach was not small. No, it was jumbo-sized. And there I was, face to face to with the King of all roaches in my very own bathroom. I turned and ran from the pantry door, located next to the door out, and ran into the toilet. I could get into the shower, I thought, and turn on the water. Roaches don’t like water, right? I searched the ground for something to kill it with. A magazine rack near the toilet with a few travel mags. No, too flimsy. I searched the ground. My slipper! I picked it up and suddenly my size 8 foot seemed largely inadequate. I glanced defensively towards the pantry door, and in my mad pursuit of a weapon, the bug had gone.
At about this time, the heebie-jeebies appeared. Starting in the back of my neck and travelling down my spine, all the way to my toes. I started swatting with my slipper at different parts of my body, the phantom roach crawling all over me. I just knew it was in my hair, on my back, crawling up my forearm. Psychological warfare, these roaches are intense. It’s okay, I thought, when I kill this one I’ll leave him near the crack in the wall where his friends and family shall be forewarned of the dangers. But wait, I had tried that before, setting up a roach cemetery, sans gravesites, in my Florida bathroom. The roaches just didn’t seem to get it. They kept appearing, popping out of crevices and drains.
Now where was this one? The pantry was open and blocking the main door out. When my shuddering subsided, I crept towards both doors. No sign of movement. I searched up and down the shelves of the pantry, skimmed the ceiling and wall across from the opening. What if it was on the other side of the door? I had to close that one to open the other. I stood in front of the doors, one open which I wanted closed, the other closed which I wanted open. I’d have to make a move. I could close the pantry door really fast and then run backwards in the case that the roach were to fly to get away. Clutching the shoe, I put a single finger on the pantry door and pulled it towards me where it swung shut. I jumped back, kung-fu style, and I think I closed my eyes. The next thing I know, King Ugly was scurrying up the bathroom door and stopped right at the top, just before the crack of the opening. It waited there as if to say, “Come on, I dare you. I know you want out, you sissy.”
There was no way I was going out that door. I would have called for some intervention but I was home alone. I would have crawled out the window, but in a 1920’s bungalow, most windows don’t open – this was the case in that particular bathroom.
Not carefully thinking and acting on angry impulse, I threw the shoe. It hit about a foot under the bug ( I never said I had good aim), and the roach didn’t even flinch. That’s it, I thought, this vain, vomitous creature must die. I lunged towards the door, reaching with my right hand for the doorknob and keeping my body as far away as I could. I finally grasped the knob and yanked it open, running out of the room and straight into kitchen where I rummaged under the sink for a fatal weapon that would put an end to the charade. Wasp and Hornet spray was all I could find, and I figured it would do the trick.
A quarter of a bottle of insect spray sure can suffocate someone in a small room. I had to leave and come back thirty minutes later, the little poky legs of the roach still squirming a little. I watched it in its last moments of life and started thinking to myself, What if there were giants that came to earth and thought we humans were a disgusting breed of animals? What if the characters from the rumors of the extraterrestrial were to reveal themselves, and they were more civilized than we? Would they stomp us, kill us meaninglessly, simply for being ‘ugly’? Would I be one of those night-crawlers, rummaging for trash and means of survival, my translucent skin shining in the moonlight, while others slept and rested before another day of hard work? Or would they just kill us all?
I almost felt bad for the little guy (little by comparison, that thing was still enormous!). But would it stop me from killing again? Probably not. You know never know, they could organize an army and attack me in my sleep, stuffing up my nose and laying eggs in my hair and ears. No, that’s just crazy. Nonetheless, I opened the phonebook and searched for the nearest exterminator.