Prepare . . . for total domination.
Latest Entry Older Entries
1.25.01
EEEEEEWWW!
I know the real reason why South Floridians wear sandals.

I'm getting ready for work this morning. I have pants, but no shirt. So I head back to the second bedroom closet, where most of our clothes currently reside. I'm flipping through the shirts, when I hear a strange noise. It kind of sounds like plastic, like a breeze is rifling a plastic grocery bag. So I look up.

Perched on my sparkly navy shoes is a Palmetto bug. It's about 2 inches long. It's looking at me.

I am not an, "EW, gross! A spider!" kind of girl. Snakes and lizards and ants and mice and most other slimy-slinky-creepy-crawly things don't scare me. I get really pissed off by this stereotype: Woman jumps on the chair, shreiking, and calls for her husband to smash the sucker. He then chuckles, wipes the tears of fright from her eyes, kisses her gently, and carries her off to bed, where she rewards him for being her hero. In fact, when researching this morning's find, I actually found an article where the writer says, "Wives and daughters and palmetto bugs don't mix." Whatever, fucker. My mom was the squisher in my house. Not because she was a brute or dad was a wimp, but because bug tolerance has NOTHING TO DO WITH GENDER.

I don't do BIG BUGS. I can't deal. And this sucker is big.

Dropping my clothes on the closet floor, I sprint to the other bedroom on the opposite end of the apartment, leap onto the bed, make all kinds of horrible faces, and frantically call Neal. He isn't happy to hear this story. Neither of us are happy that the bug isn't even in a place where I can just trap him with a glass or something. So I leave it there and head to work.

The fucker is probably trying on my clothes and ordering a keg and calling all his palmetto buddies and telling them to stop by the crib, because mama and papa are gone for the day. Yuck.

I guess I should explain what a palmetto bug is. Technically, it's a type of roach. But it should NOT be mixed up with the dirty, repulsive, coating-the-shower-floor-of-your-NYC-apartment brand of roach. Those guys are German roaches, and they like dirt. Palmetto bugs like warm and damp, making the occasional appearance of one inevitable for anyone living in South Florida, the heat-and-humidity capital of the U.S. The other good thing is unlike the German roach, seeing one doesn't signify an epidemic. THANK. GOD.

So you can stop thinking Neal and I are filthy, horrible creatures. Unless that turns you on.

I'll buy some traps, and we'll re-seal the seams in the closet. I was really close to fogging the entire closet and then shutting the door and leaving the fucker to die in a poison fog this morning. Good thing I didn't, because Neal said that would have been VERY BAD. Something about not wanting to wear toxic clothing. I don't know.

I've had 2 other run-ins with Palmetto bugs during my year living on this island.

The first involved me dumping a glass or red wine into the sink, looking into the drain, and realizing that a 3 inch Palmetto bug had drowned in the Neal's leftover Cabernet. Not a bad way to go, but it grossed me out, and I decided not to heat up that leftover crab alfredo after all.

The second run-in was weirder. I step out of the shower, look down, and am faced with the biggest Palmetto bug I've ever seen. I mean, the thing is the size of a small mouse. As long as a thumb and twice as wide. (Shudder) He's lying on his back in a pool of water, dead. He's in the part of the tub that's away from the faucet, y'know? How did he get all the way over there and just die? How did I take an entire shower and not see that huge disguisting thing? How did I not step on it?

THANK GOD I DIDN'T STEP ON IT. EW!

I left it for Neal as a little end of the work day, welcome home honey present. You know, just one of those little romantic intimate things that make living together so very nice. Oh, he was appreciative, too. Hoo boy.

He took care of the thing.

The moral of the story is:

I'd like you all to take a minute and imagine how nice and relaxing my shower was the next day. Oh, yeah... the best part of waking up is paranoid bug watch.

But I didn't see any. Until today. Blech.

I think it's time for a new Question o' the Week:

What creeps you out?

The Realm of Monkey Love
chatty chat about news and such
buy stuff; feed poor kids