When I first moved to NY, I lived in student housing, which was notorious for their bedbug infestations. I didn’t sleep well a single night there for fear of getting eaten by bedbugs and having them live inside my mattress and the wood of my bunk. There were giant cockroaches in the communal kitchen and they just loved sticking their disgustingly large and long antennae out from beneath the edge of the sink whenever I drew near. I, naturally, would freak out. After living two hellacious months under such conditions (not to mention the rusty tap water or the mold infrastructure - I mean, bathroom), I moved to my own great place on 50th and 9th, smack dab in the middle of Hell’s Kitchen. It’s a beautiful little cozy building with nary a history of bugs of any sort. Well, some months in - quite a few in fact, as Carolyn was already living with me at the time, and she moved in 6 months after I got the place - I came across the carcass of a large cockroach. I’d never seen one so big before, but luckily it was dead. Nevertheless, I was completely disgusted and freaked out, and made my brave Alaskan roommate dispose of the body.
Fast forward to a few months later. It’s late at night, and I’m home alone. I’m watching something, probably a Doctor Who episode, when Stry starts going crazy chasing something about. Thinking a toy of his got under the couch, I kneel down and peer under. And what should I see but a crazy-ass, scary huge cockroach racing across the floor. Granted, it probably wasn’t as huge as I thought it was, what with seeing it in the dark with the glow of the computer behind me and all, but it was the first time I was alone, face to face with a terrifying creature of the NYC streets and sewers. With a frightened gasp, I leapt up and away from my lovely red couch, flipped the light on and, armed with my trusty dust buster, moved the couch cautiously away from the walls. Nothing. There was nothing there. A bit relieved because I didn’t have to deal with this dark nemesis alone, but also freaked out because I didn’t know where the heck he’d vanished to, I trepidatiously put back the couch and huddled on the far end to continue watching - fervently praying The Doctor would come save me.
So, lights up on my kitchen a few days later, when all of a sudden I see skittering across the wall near Stry’s food dishes, a large (though not super huge) bug that moves incredibly way too fast. This was it. This show was about to go down. But, luckily for me, I had my trusty Alaskan roommate to back me up this time ‘round. Or rather, Carolyn could take care of the whole bug issue while I rooted her on from my perch atop a chair in the kitchen. I frantically called for her assistance and pathetically whined for her to kill the giant beast, which by now had raced its way into the living room and was behind the large bookcase. Carolyn couldn’t move the large piece of furniture, covered as it was in cookbooks, acting books, playbills, and countless pages of random sheet music, so I had to brave meeting my 6-legged, fast as lightening moving foe, and ventured into the next room to cautiously move the bookcase away from the way. Well, there the little bugger lurked. With careful corralling, and not a little shrieking from me, we got the bastard into such a position as was amenable to a good shoe smashing. Crisis averted. Skinny white girls = 1. NastywickedevilfastandcreepyNYCbug = 0.
Then there was that other time a few months back when I was watching something or other, most likely another Doctor Who episode, when Carolyn mentions there’s a big flying cockroach buzzin’ around. Again, I freak out a little bit - though not quite as much as last time. I leapt up from the couch and into the kitchen, away from the nefarious villain. American cockroaches get pretty big and they can fly, which makes them all the more creepy and utterly disturbing. It flew up and was near the top of the brick wall and the ceiling, just kinda sittin’ there, doing it’s thing, walkin’ around a little bit, so I braved a little and peaked my head in. Carolyn was standing on the couch trying to reach it, but it was too high for her. I handed her the wooden easel that wasn’t put together so she could try to squish him. But she didn’t want to disturb him and then have him fly away. So I grabbed the bottle of Febreeze and spritzed away at the little fucker. I completely doused it, and as it was trying to clean its antennae off, Carolyn, in a beautiful and swift move which would’ve brought a proud 10 points to Gryffindor, brushed it off the wall and again did some mighty shoe crushing action. Definitely much more team work and less timidity by yours truly this go round.
And that, my dear readers, brings us to tonight. Stry, as he is often wont to do, threw up, so I cleaned it up and went to the kitchen to dispose of the soiled paper towel. I turn the light on, see an adolescent sized cockroach on the wall a bit below the cabinets over the sink, throw the paper towel away, and turn back towards the bug and watch as it scrams its nasty little ass back up behind the cabinets out of sight and reach. I fill a spray bottle with water and alcohol, spray up behind there a few times, then turn the light off and come back into the bedroom. I say to Carolyn, “There’s a cockroach in the kitchen. It went behind the cabinets.” “How big is it?” “Eh, not that big.” And that, my dear readers, is how yours truly has grown from a frightened, shrieking Wisconsin girl into a wizened, calloused, and uncaringly nonchalant New Yorker. Bam. (And if you actually read all of that, kudos to you. You're amazing.)