Cockroaches are one of my least favourite things about having to get up in the middle of the night to...use the facilities. Stepping on one in my bare feet is kind of my worst nightmare. Although...not really... I've been having such horrendous dreams lately, dreams that would make stepping on a cockroach feel rather tame. Still, I imagine stepping on a cockroach would be at least mildly unpleasant.
Benjamin stepped on one in the music room last year. It was...mildly unpleasant.
Anyway, I don't really want to step on a cockroach, but when you're making your way though the house, in the dark, in your bare feet...it's always a possibility.
(Don't suggest wearing slippers because I also have this mild fear of putting on shoes and finding bugs (or whatever) inside, so I have to check before I put them on, because could you imagine putting your foot into your slipper in the middle of the night only to find that there's a cockroach inside?!)
Keep in mind that these cockroaches don't live inside. They simply...get...inside.
Just this evening a cockroach flew into the house when Andrew opened the garage door.
They just...find their way. Like lizards. And things.
Anyway, the other night before bed Andrew spotted a cockroach making its way across our floor, so he did the gentlemanly thing and trapped it and put it outside. But it made me worry a little extra about coming across a cockroach in the middle of the night (not that they're particularly scary creatures but because...the *crunch* followed by the *squish* of such a large bug is seems like it would be a very unpleasant sensation to experience).
So, I got up in the middle of the night, as pregnant ladies sometimes do, and when I flipped on the bathroom light I...spotted a cockroach.
Which was fine.
Cockroaches happen.
But I didn't want to leave it wandering around our bedroom/bathroom all night, either, so I emptied one of the glass cups we keep on our vanity (we have three full of various useful things: Q-tips, and flossers, and things) and thought I'd just cup that cockroach for the evening and deal with it the rest of the way in the morning.
So there I was, half-awake, half-asleep, ready to slam this glass cup down on this cockroach when the awake part of my brain alerted me to the fact that, well, the floor is tile. If I put the cup down swiftly enough to catch the cockroach by surprise...I will very likely shatter the glass...and that couldn't possibly be a good thing to deal with at 4:00 in the morning. So I told the cockroach to go in peace (but to stay away from my bed).
I told Andrew about it in the morning and we joked about finding the cockroach later or just sending the cat in to sniff it out (she enjoys a good cockroach hunt) and I worried about it hanging out in our bed. Andrew assured me that wasn't a likely scenario.
But then, later that day, I walked into our bedroom and what did I see hanging out on the curtains right above our bed?! A giant cockroach!
Probably the same one from my middle-of-the-night experience (but maybe not).
So I went to the bathroom and got the same glass that I'd emptied the night before and went over to the curtains and cupped that cockroach...because I figure that you can put a glass up against the curtains/drywall fast enough to surprise a cockroach without shattering the glass (you can).
And then I had to holler for Andrew to help me catch a cockroach.
"I already have it trapped!" I clarified (so he wouldn't waste time grabbing a cup).
He walked into the bedroom, to see me sprawled across the bed, with my arm holding the cup against the wall above his pillow.
"Do you have it trapped?" he asked, "Or does it have you trapped?"
I suppose that in that exact moment it was mutual entrapment, but we got that cockroach out the door, which meant both of us were then free.
Of course, the cockroach is a little freer than me, since it gets to live out its life in peace while I have to continue worrying about stepping on some unfortunate critter in the middle of the night for the next few months...
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