La Cucaracha

Is anyone a big fan of roaches? I know I’m not. Even the name itself is repulsive. It’s borrowed from the Spanish word cucaracha but it may as well be derived from the verb “to encroach” or “take possession of and advance beyond the proper limits”, because that’s exactly what they’re doing. I’m assuming they get together at night to discuss the best encroachment strategy and all day long they’re slowly advancing and taking possession of my shit. I’m praying that their insolence doesn’t take them so far as to hold nightly meetings on my head while I sleep. Too bad they’re too dumb to realize that if they all march together they’d be able to cover me head to toe and post their roach flag on my ass. I can step on one-two max, but not five hundred. I guess they’re loners. So how does one protect himself from these scavengers? I believe that something a bit stronger than Combat is needed to annihilate a species unaffected by nuclear energy. Wow, they are really happy with their roach lives and determined to be here. They’ve even evolved into giant freaks of nature gently called water bugs. Should I be drinking Poland Spring (bear piss) or tap water (water roach piss)? All this time I mistakenly assumed that shrimp were the water roaches. We’ve been consuming the wrong crustacean people! The water bug(gers) induce a flight response in me worse than any predator. When I see one I scream and then stare at it in awe of its hideousness. Little does it know that I’m also mentally preparing to squash the “water” out of it and have only to decide which object to use for that purpose. If anyone’s wondering why I don’t step on it with my feet I will only say this: my foot is the size of the damn roach, that’s how big they are. I need to come at it with something HUGE! If I was able to lift my 50-inch TV set, I’d use that (it’s not working anyway). This reminds me of a great story to tell the kids at bedtime. One day as I was about to go to sleep, I noticed (by pure miraculous chance) that there is a huge brown spot on top of my windowsill. When the spot started moving it was the last straw. I almost jumped out of the window thinking that evolution has given those Thumbelinas wings (to increase their chances of survival, like in case they break a leg when the A-bomb drops) but realized that thankfully that wasn’t the case. I crouched behind the dresser anxiously awaiting its next move when it lazily toppled over the edge and fell to the floor, hitting my blanket on the way down with its poor aim. If you can’t imagine how disgusted, disgruntled, disappointed and downright deflated I was (check out the use of alliteration). I had the enemy by the balls so to speak, I was certain it was dead. Such stupidity on my part! It was alive and well and resting inside my soft cushy slipper (needless to say I’ve never worn those again and got into the habit of sticking a gloved hand inside all my shoes inspecting for potential pest resting places).

Having lost all hope I decided to contact the one man I knew able to massacre all the roaches in the apartment over a period of 2-3 weeks-my dad. He boasts how he single-handedly took out the whole damn colony just be being himself. When we moved into our first decrepit apartment, its senile residents were at such war against the astounding roach population, the situation eerily resembled the middle-east crisis. Both sides were attempting to kill the other off in an attempt to secure an ancient relic. The problem was at a standstill. Low and behold, in moves my dad, and in a Rambo-like turn of events achieves peace by completely slaughtering the enemy. I quote: “I’ve won the war by being determined and ruthless. I’ve drawn chalk in front of enemy lines and strategically placed combat at every foxhole. I’ve sprayed bug spray over the entire apartment leaving no stone unturned”. Basically I lived in a nuclear war zone as a teenager, inhaling anti-roach fumes all day. Our door should’ve had the “Warning: highly hazardous environment” sign on it. “The most effective method of all was to wake up in the middle of the night (with the sole purpose of roach destruction in mind), turn on the light and open fire (stomp away with slippers on both hands and feet), killing as many of them as I could at once! I did that a few times each night”. Now that’s what I call dedication! Wait those suckers out. Let the nocturnal deviants think they’re safely having a free for all in the kitchen and then BAM, in comes Stallone armed with women’s slippers. I almost feel sorry for the unsuspecting morons, may they all rest in peace.