Cockroach, oh cockroach, I hate you, you stink...

Living in the South, you become familiar with a very frightening, winged creature, whose very existence I still question. The 6-legged terror is known as the elusive, disgusting cockroach. From the Latin word Barata, this insect, belonging to the phylum Arthropoda, has been giving me (and countless others) fits for as long as I can remember. **Props to Wikipedia for the scientific information because we all know I didn't know that crap.** This picture alone is reason enough to start uncontrollable itching on my part along with a little vomit rising in my throat; you're welcome.

However, I do not post to tell you of my hatred for the cockroach, but to tell you a tale. Seriously, I'm becoming more and more nautious the more this picture is on my screen, so I am having to type to take its picture away; they are that sick to me. GEEEEEW! Anyway, back to the point. Everyone who has been a native to the South for more than a year knows that summer is, unfortunately, pique cockroach time. I'm unsure if the warm weather brings them out of their oak tree santuaries or if it's the smell of BBQ and the sounds of unbothered fun from unsuspecting humans or what, but for whatever reason, they come out in droves during these hot, hot Alabama months. Even if you live in a relatively clean and tidy place, you still find them, lurking in the bathroom, or, in the case of my story, buzzing through your friends apartment. *insert shudders from readers and looks of disgust*

Last week, Lucy, Dominique, Joy Tiley, and myself were enjoying a nice little Tuesday evening together sitting around Dom's living room; a little laughter, a little seriousness, a little red wine, a few "that's what she said" comments, the evening was going great. The events that proceeded the arrival of the roach are still unclear, but I believe that Dom was talking, making a fairly serious point about something, when all of a sudden, as if apparating from some unknown place, a giant FLYING cockroach soars through the living room and lands in Dom's dining room. There are 3 insects that I have a very hard time keeping my composure around; wasps, bees, and cockroaches (spiders don't count since they are arachnids, but I do also have a hard time keeping my composure around them as well, what up) and apparently I am not the only member of this Fantastic Foursome that has this problem because when we saw the roach, every one of us screamed at the top of our lungs. You would've thought an armed robber had just burst through the door with the sounds that came out of that place, but no, it was merely my arch-nemisis, la cucaracha.

Shouts and screams of "Get a shoe! Get a shoe! Kill it, kill it!" resounded throughout the room as poor Dom (the only one NOT standing on a piece of furniture) ran to find some sort of footwear to bring this miserable creature to its death. She hit it over and over and over again on her dining room carpet and even backed it into a corner, where it appeared motionless and lifeless, meeting the death it very much deserved. I decided to "man up" and spray it with some scented Lysol (there was no bug spray, ok) just to ensure its death. As I walked over and sprayed it, to all our surprise, the little s.o.b. began to quickly skirt about the place as we all began to scream and yell once more. According to Dr. Joseph Ayers, "The cockroach’s speed is due to the design of its legs and body. It has a stable posture with a low center of gravity. The legs are essentially blind thrusters, pistons angled just the right way, so it will inevitably scramble over objects in its path, whether it sees them or not." Whatever, Dr. Ayers, they still suck.

So, after that, Dom quickly puts the tennis shoe back on top of it, but she can't get to an angle to put enough weight on it without lifting the shoe and releasing the sick little beast, so I stepped up, literally, and ran to stand on top of the shoe, squishing the pest with all my might. We waited a good minute or more, just to make sure he was dead, and when Dom took the shoe off the winged beast, I SPRINTED and SHRIEKED to the nearest couch because I just knew it wasn't going to be dead. FALSE: it was. And I looked like a jack-a. After that we were left with the dilema of who is going to pick up the vile, shredded pieces of the roach. Lucy stepped up to do it (notice, Tiley, completely absent from the killing of the roach. No shame, Tiley, I wish I would've been. I do believe your shoe was the one that killed it, so there's your contribution). Lucy went and got about 1 million paper towels and when she went to pick up the remains, she began to gag, but tried to pick it up anyway. She had a hit and miss, though, and got nothing, gagged some more, threw down the paper towels and said, "I can't do it, I can't do it!" I believe, yet again, Dom came to the rescue, picked up the thing, disposed of it, releasing us from our cockroach hell.

This was one of those moments in my life that I wish I had a video camera set up because we could've definitely sent that thing into AFV and made the big bucks. Be that as it may, you will have to settle for my written, slightly dramatic, retelling of the event. Regardless, it's still pretty hilarious.

I can't promise that if I saw someone dressed like this at any sort of costumed gathering I would be able to resist hitting them with a shoe over and over again, just out of habit.