Thursday, March 03, 2005

I'm being punished

I've been a little bratty when people have been complaining about the snow. I kind of sit here and say "ha ha!" as I look out of my big window at the 65-75 degree weather and listen to the birds, both nice and mean, and watch them eat the bird food. I bask in the ray of sunshine that pours in the window at the same time and think "suckers!" as I read blog after blog of "I wish it would stop snowing".

Well, last night I had a reality check. You see, we don't get snow here. Well, once a year we MIGHT see a flake, but it almost never sticks. And when it does it's big news. However, with the good comes the bad. In Texas we may not get snow, but ROACHES are a way of life. I don't care if you spray every day, seal your windows with masking tape, caulk a board over the fireplace openeing, do the anti-roach dance and seal a plastic bubble around your house. You are still, someway, somehow going to get roaches in your home in Texas.

I'm not talking your typical "mini" roach that you get elsewhere. I'm talking the huge, 2" buggers that live here. The winged ones. This website says they seldom fly, but they falied to mention that when they see ME they like to fly into my hair. And notice their legs have little spokes on them?

Roaches Posted by Hello

Those little spokes don't let them release from your hair very easily! Trust me, I know.

Anyway, last night my dog decided she needed to go outside at 2am. Fine. I sleepily crawled out of bed, went into the kitchen and let her out. Once I got my senses about me I realized that I was thirsty. Not a usual kind of thirst. My tounge was sticking to the roof of my mouth. I couldn't feel my fingers, my skin felt like leather, and my eyes were so dry my contacts wouldn't focus and I felt like they had shriveled up right there in my eyeball.

So, since the dog was taking her sweet time I turned on the light and went to pour some of that country water I bragged about. But the only glasses left were huge glasses. And if I drank one of those huge glasses I'll be up every half hour peeing.

Never fear! I had just run the dishwasher earlier that evening! I can get a smaller glass out of there. (You are asking why I just didn't take a big glass and fill it halfway? I was half a asleep and too tired for such complicated things).

I opened the CLEAN dishwasher and thought I saw something run into the little hole that the clamp that holds the door closed comes out of. But I thought, "silly me! I haven't seen a roach in the kitchen in months! It can't be. Besides I can't see well because my contacts are fuzzy because I'm so dehydrated! I must be hallucinating. How could a roach get in a SEALED dishwasher?"

I start to pull the top rack out to get a glass. And ANOTHER roach comes running out. I let out a squeal and ran for a shoe. More of an "AACK!" Oh, by now I'm fully awake and my heart is beating 150 beats per minute. I hit the area of the roach with a shoe, but there are so many crevaces in the dishwasher that he could run into and I missed. So, I blindly hit, and hit, and hit, hoping one of the hits would strike. Bryan comes running out of the bedroom in his underwear with his hair sticking straight up and asks "What the hell are you doing?". I'm sure I was a sight, in the kitchen wearing my nightgown, beating up the dishwasher with a dirty shoe.

I explained to him that a roach was in the dishwasher and he said "could you hit a little quieter? I'm trying to sleep!". Obvioulsy he was too asleep to see the enormity of the situation. I mean a ROACH in the same space as our CLEAN dishes. And it may be a roach INFESTATION, as I swore I saw that other one escape in the latch.

He went back to bed and left ME to deal with this crisis. He must have forgotten that the main reason I married him was to kill bugs. Finally the roach ran to the side wall of the dishwasher and I got him good. I cleaned him and and put soap in the soap thingie thinking I would just run it again to clean the dishes. But then, the one that ran in the latch keeps haunting me.

Now I think I am going to start hand washing my dishes. Including the ones already in the dishwasher.

And I never did get my water.

Anyone want to trade snow for a dishwasher full of 2" long, winged roaches?

Question: Roaches or Snow? You decide.

10 comments:

MilkMaid said...

Roaches and skeetas the size of lemons, yeah, the curse of the south for sure.

But I'll take it any day over freakin COLD!

Like you, I weild a mean ass'd shoe and I have the super duper can of raid.

My secret weapon is boric acid tho, as long as I'm pretty good a keeping that stuff woofed under the sink in the kitchen and baths, we do fairly well.

BTW, the Preacher really said what the hell are you doing? AHAHAHAHA that made me laugh. ;)

Carol (Smiles and Laughter) said...

MM, I put boric acid in the walls of our last place when we had our kitchen remodeled. Worked like a charm.

I'm thinking these roaches came up through the drain. How else could they get past the seals of the dishwasher? I'm still perplexed.

And yes, I quoted Bryan directly! LOL. :)

Happy and Blue 2 said...

I live in the land of the snow and we still get mosquitos and roaches here. Just not so much..
After reading your post I think the snow is better...

Karen said...

I'll take the snow, any day. It's clean, pretty, and kills a lot of those aforementioned creepy-crawlies.

My boyfriend does the bug killing. Anything bigger than a fruit fly grosses me out and getting myself to kill it takes a lot of time and courage. In this respect, my boyfriends are the MEN in my relationships.

William is even more manly because he volunteered to pull out all the hair in my bathtub drain that was clogging it. I didn't even ask - I was just going to use more Liquid Plumr. Hair-clog-in-drain is a pretty gross chore, so he gets at least as much credit as he would if he'd killed some roaches.

Anonymous said...

SNOW. Definitely snow. Roaches are nasty business.

I'm in the south too - Tennessee - but we don't get those roaches. We do get mosquitos - but just your normal variety and not so bad unless we're unusually wet. But, we rarely get snow either!

Oh man - I think I'd be STEAM CLEANING those dishes - that just gives me the heebie jeebies!

tina

LK said...

I'm sorry to laugh at your distress but that image of you whacking the dishwasher with a shoe was priceless.

As for what I would prefer, we don't get either here but I think I'll take snow. It's a pure novelty for an Aucklander.

gal artist said...

I'll take snow, yep, snow anyday, you can keep your creepy crawlers, at least I know the snow will go away eventually.

Last summer, there was an elderly man living in the block down from my house, somehow, his house became infested with millions of german cockroaches which are different than your everyday household roaches. Well, as bugs will be bugs, they spread a ten block radius. The city stepped in and paid for all the houses to be exterminated. It took them all summer to get rid of the buggers. Yuck.

Rhodent said...

WEll, I live in Florida. Not only does Florida have large roaches (yes we too get the 2" versions) but we have humongous Palmetto bugs. They are not roaches and they DO fly! And they are just as ikcy as roaches... maybe more so!

elle said...

Keep the critters, I'll take the drifts. "Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!!!"

Sorry babe.

Frances said...

Another New Zealander here... we don't get roaches, and in my city we might get a couple of snowflakes a year if we're lucky (and schools shut because of it! LOL!).

So I'd take snow, for a day or two anyway, for the novelty value.