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9:28 a.m. - Thursday, Jan. 23, 2003
How Ms Leslie Forgets Her Troubles
Sometimes all it takes to get your mind off of your everday problems is a great project, a great challenge� or a great battle.

Now don�t get the wrong impression. I don�t tolerate vermin in my apartment. That mouse I mentioned here and here is gone now. I think he must have taken up residence during the five weeks I was away from home last fall. That was his big mistake. I turned my home into a toxic food bank for him. It was only a matter of time.

Bugs are likewise emphatically not welcome at my house. I live in a high-turnover apartment complex, however, and I�m in the very deep south. So the occasional bug wanders in from the apartment on the other side of the wall, or perhaps from a packing box, or in cold weather, these gigantic bugs that native southerners euphemistically name �palmetto bugs� will squeeze through a crack and come into the warmth. Little do they realize that coming into the warmth in my apartment leads inexorably to going into the light, and quickly.

Management keeps a contract for pest control. Every month, the man comes into my apartment with a little sprayer that deals unremitting death to many-legged creatures of every ilk. In the two years I�ve been here, I�ve seen less than ten of these giant cockroaches� er�� palmetto bugs, and three or four tiny little german cockroaches. In every case, I�ve found them mere moments after they�ve dropped dead of chemical warfare right in mid-scurry in the middle of my floor. You go Orkin Man!

Until yesterday, I should say.

Yesterday I came naked and vulnerable out of my morning shower to spot one of the big ones on the carpet in the little hallway between my bedroom and bath. I think he may have been the biggest one I�ve seen here to date. How big?

Well, hold up your thumb, Now measure it with a straight ruler. If your thumb measures less than two and a half inches, then this bug was longer than your thumb.

He was that big, and alive. At first I thought he must be dead. He wasn�t moving. At least not until I turned my head. But then each time I turned back, I could see that he had shifted position, if only to face a different direction.

He was between me and my clothes. And he was alive. Just the realization was enough to make the room seem cold. I gave a violent shudder as I felt a dozen of the shiny brown creatures squiggling up my naked, dripping back.

I�ve been up against these critters before. In a previous life, I learned what they do when they�re freaked out. In their haste to find a sheltering crack, they�ll charge your feet, hoping to hide under them as if they were a cool, safe rock. There�s no aerobics class in the world that can make me hop faster or higher. I shivered again as I imagined such a scurrying attack played out against my bare feet and I pranced involuntarily to and fro like an anxious filly.

It was much more than a hop I performed at last in my effort to get past the evil insect. It was something more like Miss Piggy performing Nuryev. It might have been somewhat more graceful had I not opted mid-air to forgo clothing after all and make a sweeping right turn away from the bedroom and towards the kitchen and my safety aerosol can of Deadly Bengal Roach Spray. I don�t think they get this stuff up north. The factory is in Baton Rouge. Let�s just say it lives up to it�s claim: It �Flushes and Kills�. Sadly, I guess the final flushing is left up to me.

So I pirouetted in mid-air like Sylvester the Cat over a sleeping Bulldog and landed on one toe just on the far side of the dazzled roach. I didn�t give him time to mount a footsie attack before I high-stepped across the living room and into the kitchen. When I returned, bearing my red and yellow cannister of death, the roach had moved a few feet towards the bottom of the closet door. He stopped in my shadow and turned to see my weapon. Before he could make the door, I gave him a long pre-emptive blast, fogging the area between him and the door and then sweeping back towards him. That, of course, meant the war was on. He charged in my direction like a wild Berserker, barely feinting from side to side and he made towards my feet. OmiGod!!! I still had bare feet! I danced rapidly backward in a series of steps in which only the slightest points on the outside edges of my feet contacted the ground until I was within leaping distance of my futon.

While I was engaged in this avoiding maneuver, my adversary took advantage of the diversion to scamper towards the back of my new bookcase. As much as I hated the sight of him, I knew I could not afford to lose him. It was too late for shoes. I tried to forget about my feet as I pressed my attack again, chasing him away from the bookcase and back onto open ground. The spray, which should have knocked him dead at the first whiff was only just now beginning to have any effect at all. He was clearly furious with me for dosing him with this obnoxious liquid. And even more furious that I had twice frustrated his escape. With a tiny snarl, he rushed me once again, then sensing my panic, he turned away once more and disappeared into the bedroom.

I�ve never regretted leaving yesterday�s clothing on the floor as much as I did now. As I peeked around the corner, I realized the insect could be anywhere, but especially, he could be in my dirty clothes, waiting to skitter up my arm if I picked up the wrong thing. It was my worst fear. He was out of sight.. and in my bedroom. My goosebumps stood an inch high.

I wasn�t sure how I would approach this problem. Should I get a stick and just carry my clothes out to the dumpster? What if he had gone behind my dresser. What if he had gotten into my (gasp! ) panty drawer! Clearly I was going to have to hire some men to empty the room, take it all away and start over.

But then I spotted him. He was obviously drunk from the medicine now. Drunk and sick, and yet too curious to allow himself a hidden spot to die alone. Curiosity. I think sometimes it�s the curse of intelligence. He was just under my chest of drawers, watching me through sleepy eyes. I know now I should have ended it there. I should have given him a little respect and simply allowed him to succumb with dignity and honor. But no; I HAD to press it. I wanted to see him die, and quickly, painfully, soaked in an obscene overabundance of poison. So I sprayed the sucker again.

He knew now, as much as a cockroach can know anything, that he was ended. He knew there would no mercy; no chance of salvation. He knew� and I think it pissed him off. Instead of giving up and flipping over on his back, the turd made a last effort and dragged himself under my bed to disappear into the matrix of shoes and stored cardboard that resides there.

So now I know he�s dead, but he took away any pleasure in that certainty by denying me his corpse. He�s still under there now� somewhere. There�s a pillow which slipped between the bed and the wall. Is he on it? Is he in it? Can I ever lay my head comfortably there again? Is he in a shoe?, under a box? Or did he make it to the other side and crawl up into my bedding? Did he even really die? Without a body, I will never know, Yet I�ll never see his body until I crawl on my belly with a flashlight and vacuum hose; until I pull everything out from under the bed piece by piece and inspect it for his dried husk.

And yes, I spent the night out here in the living room, sleeping on my futon� what little sleep I�ve gotten. In his last moments, the bug won. He cheated me out of his death and he has caused me much more anxiety and inconvenience than any bug should be allowed. He is (I hope) at peace. I battle him still.

Well fought, you little fucker!

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