Cockroaches

Two nights ago Joey and I were going through the Dumpster in search of our old trash. This was, of course, in a last-ditch effort to find my cell phone.

The Dumpster had recently been emptied, so fortunately neither of us had to climb in. (Had that been the case, Joey was definitely the one that was going inside!) We shone our flashlights inside and threw trash bags around to ascertain whether or not our trash was still inside.

It was not.

I was getting bored and my arm was getting sore from holding the flashlight. Out of the corner of my eye I saw what I thought were leaves blowing around on the pavement. Since I was (am?) fairly distracted, I skipped over to see what the movement was.

It was not leaves.

It was....

"OHMIGOSH! OHMIGOSH! OHMIGOSH! OHMIGOSH!" I screamed, running around the parking lot. At 9:30 p.m.

"WHAT?! What's the matter?" Joey asked, trying to figure out what in the world was wrong with his suddenly hysterical wife.

"I.....they....there's...." I couldn't say it, I just pointed to the ground.

Cockroaches. Rather large ones. Circling the Dumpster and running around the parking lot.

"It's OK, it's just cockroaches," Joey said.

I did one of those full-body shudders and ran to the sidewalk.

"I hate cockroaches." I wimpered.

"You're OK now. They won't hurt you," Joey rationalized.

"I hate cockroaches," I repeated, "Can't handle them at all."

Seeing he wasn't going to get anywhere with that line of reasoning, he took my arm and guided me into the house.

In order to properly appreciate my irrational fear of cockroaches, one must understand just how irrational it is. Joey and I went to China a couple months after we were married and, fortunately, our apartment was on the top floor of our building or we'd have seen a lot more cockroaches than we did see.

However, one evening I was going downstairs to place a call back to the US (a phone interview for a job, no less) and there was a cockroach on the stairs. A huge one. I refused to go past it and went back upstairs to get Joey so he could do something (who knows what) about the situation.

I was actually late to make the phone call because of this cockroach.

I sheepishly admitted to the man I was interviewing with that a cockroach had made me late for the interview. Fortunately for me that guy has a great sense of humor and, last time I checked, he still tells the story about one of his employees who called in from China to do a phone interview...and was late because of a cockroach.

And when I got back the roach was still there.

Only this time he was defying gravity and hanging on the wall ledge in between the stairs. I said lots of rude things to the roach as I walked by (much to the amusement of the members of my team who were staying on the same floor that this cockroach was on) and forced myself to walk up the stairs anyway.

I didn't take my shoes off for days after that. Wouldn't want to accidentally step on a roach, now, would you?

I'm going to call maintenance to see if they can schedule an emergency roach-spray of our apartment. Just in case. Our apartment is nowhere near the Dumpster...but what if they followed me?!

The whole thing gives me jibblies just thinking about it.