We live in an older neighborhood with oak trees, green spaces and gentle hills. Unfortunately, roaches come with the territory, and rainy seasons bring them out. We have a bug policy, and I’m tight with my exterminator, Oscar. He’s got my back.
As much as I hate bugs in my home, I just can’t kill them.
When faced with a bug, I am utterly useless. If the vacuum can suck it up, I’ll use it. But, for whatever reason, I scream every time I have to kill one. Not surprisingly, I have conditioned my four daughters to be just as irrational about bugs as I am.
Roaches are just the worst.
They’re too big for the vacuum, and none of us are brave enough to kill it. The conundrum: we can’t kill it and we can’t let it live. The best we can do is trap it. Yeah, we trap them with cups. Hubs isn’t a fan, but he knows our limits.
One afternoon, the girls were in their room when the screaming started. The enemy had been spotted. I ran back with cup in hand only to find the roach on the ceiling! My cup and I had nothing on that roach. It was a strategic move, being on the ceiling. That roach may have been clever, but I’m not without my skills.
I sent one kid to get a stool, a second kid to the kitchen for a plastic plate, and a third kid to the garage for duck tape. The youngest kid and I kept watch. We weren’t going to lose sight of that roach. Supplies forthcoming, I crawled on the stool, screamed, trapped that roach to the ceiling with the plastic plate, and duck taped the snot out of it. I ain’t gonna lie, I was pretty proud.
We waited for hubs. My saintly hubs looked exasperated, but the girls and I were still pretty proud, so he didn’t complain.
We left him to exercise his skills. When I heard some muffled expletives from his general direction I knew it hadn’t gone well. Apparently, roaches will survive traps taped to the ceiling and will desperately try to escape when given the opportunity (even if escape means falling on the nearest human).
Hubs came out of that battle the victor. He could have said so many things. However, he told us we could rest easy and then nixed all future ceiling traps.
Poor hubs. We’re gonna go with that.
His patience with my quirkiness makes me feel loved. It would be completely understandable to ask me to be less quirky, but he doesn’t.
