BUGS.

Check out my Christmas video!   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPeTm9yS8oo

Two thousand and six was the year I saw my first cockroach.  Sure I had heard of them. And sure, I had seen them in movies about New York City apartments and abandoned houses in the South, but I had never actually seen one in person.  I was sitting in the Miami airport, reading a book, waiting for them to start boarding my overnight flight to Argentina to study abroad.   I was already a ball of nerves when I looked in the flower pot next to me and noticed I wasn’t the only one reading my book.  A cockroach, about two inches long and brownish-maroon in color sat on the edge of the flower pot and tried to read over my shoulder.  It was even grosser than I had imagined.  Grosser than in the movies.  Its long wings indicated to me that this creature could fly, and probably would attack me if I was impolite or made any sudden moves.  I slowly shut my book, gave the cockroach a courteous smile, and moved about 10 seats away.  Later, I saw it scurry down the side of the flowerpot onto the floor, probably headed to disturb some other unsuspecting traveler from the Northern Midwest.  As I sat there and wondered how many cockroaches would cross my path in Argentina, I decided that this particular insect and I would never get along.  That we were natural born enemies.  If I saw one, I would have to avoid it, and if it go too close, I would have to kill it.  If I was at a party, and a cockroach walked into the room, one of us would have to leave the party.  It was unfortunate, but that was how it was going to have to be.  Forever.

******

No cricket should be as large as the crickets that live here.  Their heads are half the size of a human pinky and bodies are so large you can hear them scamper along as they conduct their business.  Business?  Yes, business.  Crickets, you see, have very exhausting daily schedules.  First, they have to try to get into your house.  Since they can’t just open the front door, they have to search for whatever little opening, crack or space that they can find.  Once they get in, they have the daunting task of looking for a good place to hide.  The ones that are not picky will settle for the first hiding spot available to them, like the inside of a shoe, or the underside of a kitchen table.  The really snooty crickets, however, laugh under their breath as they run past the ones who went straight for the footwear.  These crickets prefer to enjoy the finer things in life and will take their time as they seek out suitcases, cardboard boxes, and clothes hampers.  As the crickets settle into their comfortable new digs, you’d think they would take time to relax and enjoy a much deserved nap.   Quite the contrary, because once the crickets feel comfortable with their hiding spot, it is required that they begin to eat anything and everything within their little arms´ length.  Cardboard, paper, and clothes are a cricket’s supper of choice, but this doesn’t mean that they won’t take the time to chow down on the inside of a suitcase or a good pencil eraser when available.  Finally, after a long day of trespassing, searching, hiding, and eating, a well-brought-up cricket must dedicate his night to chirping, only to wait for dawn and do it all over again.

******

I almost didn’t take my apartment because when the landlord was showing it to me and we got to the bathroom, I saw two dead cockroaches laying face-up in the shower.  Everybody knows that this is not an insect accustomed to living far from home, so I knew it was only a matter of time before I ran into the deceased cockroaches’ family and friends.  But when it came down to it, I needed a place to live.  After moving in, I would see a cockroach every once in awhile.  Though it always shook me up, it was nothing that I couldn’t handle.  That all changed on the day before New Years.  A couple of PC friends and I were in my apartment packing, getting ready to head to a town down the road for a New Year’s Eve party, when up my bedroom wall scampered the most horrible looking cockroach I have ever seen before in my life.  It was three-fourths the length of the palm of my hand with a shell (Or wings? Whatever.)  that was much thicker than that of the average cockroach.  It was a grayish-white color as opposed to the normal reddish hue that cockroaches have.  You could hear it´s little feet make contact with the wall as it ran, and as if that weren’t enough it had little hairs all over its body.  I mean, if a dinosaur and a cockroach were to mate, this guy is what would result.  My body went into shock at the sight of it, so I was lucky to have my friends there with me.  “SHOE!!!” One of my friends demanded with an outstretched hand.  But I couldn’t move.  “GET. ME. A. SHOOOOOOOOE!!!”  I snapped out of it and reached for my closest shoe.  My friend smacked the cockroach about 16 times before it stopped coming back to life.  The three of us exchanged dazed glances, knowing that we had just survived something big.  

******

I got home from reconnect at 6 o’clock in the morning.  I was looking forward to getting a few more hours of sleep because the overnight bus is no Sleep Number Bed.  I was a little wary walking into the house after a week away, knowing that I was probably going to have to play exterminator for a few minutes before getting back to sleep.  I stuck my keys in the door and cracked it open slowly, scanning the kitchen for anything that scattered.  “She’s back!” I imagined the insects warning each other as they ran for cover.  But to my surprise I didn’t see anything.  No, it was what I heard that concerned me.  When crickets are outside, the sound of their chirping is kind of like elevator music; a faint, background sound that you hear but don’t pay much attention to.  When crickets are inside, their chirping is more like a Hillary Duff CD blaring in your ear.  It’s something that must be destroyed.  The sound of dozens of singing crickets immediately took over my brain.  I dropped my luggage, grabbed my broom, and began searching my apartment for the source(s) of the chirping.  I slowly moved a cardboard box that was leaning up against a wall in my kitchen to find about 6 crickets huddled together looking up at me.  One jumped.  I jumped.  I looked at the 5 other cardboard moving boxes I had in the kitchen and did the math.  Six crickets times 5 boxes equals…way too many ******* crickets.  Disgusted, I opened my bedroom door to check out the damage in there.  The chirping intensified.  One cricket who had taken refuge behind the door quickly hopped to safety.  *Expletive.*  Though at this point I just wanted to sit down in a corner, hold my knees, and hum while rocking back and forth, I knew I had to check out the bathroom.  Hesitant, I cracked open the door and flipped on the light, clutching my broom.  The blue tile of my bathroom floor was now more of a dark brown.  It looked like a cricket war zone.  Little legs and head and arms were scattered, covering 60 percent of the floor.  Wondering how all of these crickets got in, I looked up at the two bathroom windows that are about 15 feet from the ground.  Two crickets were wedged between the tiny crack between the screen and the wall, gearing up to take the suicide plunge to the bathroom floor.  Upon seeing me, the 25 or so crickets that were lucky enough to have survived the fall, now climbed over and around their dead friends’ appendages heading for the far corner of the bathroom, creating a pile of crickets about 3 inches high.  Noticeably fatter, Sarge (see Christmas video) looked up at me with his most honest, “I did the best that I could” face as I slammed the bathroom door shut, closed my eyes and leaned up against it.  “This is NOT happening.”  I tried to convince myself.  “It sure is!”  The crickets sang back. 

******

When I tell Ecuadorians that I hate cockroaches they just kind of chuckle and say, “Why?  They won’t do anything to you.”  As if there is no good reason to hate a cockroach.  I am always prepared though, as I can think of plenty of good reasons why I hate them.  Allow me to share a few with you.  1) I hate them because they are clumsy.  I can’t count on two hands how many times I have seen a cockroach on its back, struggling unsuccessfully to flip back over to its feet.  I mean, how stupid can you be?  2) I hate them because they are flat.  The flatness of a cockroach makes it that much more disgusting.  Plus, it makes them difficult to kill with other flat items such as flip flops and frying pans.  This is why I prefer to kill my cockroaches with my North Face women´s Hedgehog GTX XCR hiking shoes.  The grip on the bottom of this particular shoe not only provides reliable traction while climbing mountains, but an effective means of killing cockroaches as well.  Get yours today!  3) I hate them because they are gross.  Fact: cockroaches have been gross since the beginning of time.  Check out a book, search the internet, ask your grandparents.  They will all tell you the same thing: cockroaches have always been and always will be gross.

******

Not knowing where to start, I began to pace between my bedroom and kitchen.  There was no way I was going to be able to do this by myself.  Should I get a neighbor?  Get a hold of Peace Corps?   Call 911?  After a few moments of panic, I decided it was now or never.  I took a deep breath and with the broom, started to slide the cardboard boxes from the kitchen out the front door.  Crickets had taken over at least one side of each box, and they were not happy about being discovered.  Once I got the boxes outside, I held the broom over my head with both hands and began to swing at the boxes PGA style.  Scared crickets fled from the boxes and headed away from the house.  I swung again.  And again.  I couldn’t stop.  When all of the crickets were gone and the boxes nearly destroyed, I continued to beat them just in case there were any crickets that were thinking about hanging around and hitching a ride back into the house.  My next-door neighbor came out of his house to greet me.

“Good morning!”

Not wanting to explain the situation for fear of breaking out into tears and looking like the crazy foreign girl that can´t handle a few insects, I removed my assassin scowl and replaced it with my friendly next-door neighbor smile. 

“Good morning!”

“What are you doing?”  My neighbor asked glancing at the boxes and my death grip on the broom.

“Oh, haha.  Just getting rid of some crickets!”  I tried to play it cool.

“Haha, yeah.  Its that time of the year again, isn’t it?”  My neighbor made small talk.

“I guess so!”  I smiled so hard that my face hurt.

After talking with a fellow PCV on the phone, I decided to take on my bedroom before the crickets ate holes in all of my clothes.  I entered quietly, readied the broom, and began to flip over my suitcases, backpacks, and books.  With a battle cry that reminded me of Mel Gibson in Braveheart, I swung the broom frantically, concentrating on killing on cricket at a time. 

Hey there, nature buffs!  Here are some interesting facts about crickets:

1) The can fly.

2) The know how to play dead.

3) They tend to jump towards you when being attacked.

4) They can jump with one leg.

5) They know how to play dead.

The crickets jumped on my bed, climbed up the walls, and hurried into and out of suitcases.  I slipped into a semi-coherent state, swinging my broom instinctively, destroying every cricket in my path, until only one lonely, wounded cricket remained in my bedroom. 

 I lifted the broom over my head, took aim, and smacked the cricket so hard my apartment echoed.  I jumped about a foot off of the ground when I felt something cold hit the base of my ankle.  I looked down to see cricket guts (I’ll spare you the color.) stuck to my leg.  Not okay.  I cringed thinking about the crickets still in the bathroom.  I was going to need backup.

I heard a male voice and peeked out my front door to see where it was coming from.  My landlord’s brother, Patricio, was working on the pipes outside of my house.  I brainstormed ways that I could trick him into killing all of the crickets in my bathroom.

“Good morning!”  I said, putting the friendly neighbor smile back on.

“Hey! How are you?  Haven’t see you in awhile!”

“Yeah, I’ve been out of town.” 

“Oh really?  How was that?”  Patricio asked, making small talk.

“Oh well you know, it was good, except now I have these crickets in my house.” 

“Yeah, that’ll happen.”

“There are A LOT in my bathroom.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why don’t you come take a look?”

I lead my neighbor into my house, back to the bathroom, and opened the door.  He stepped inside to assess the situation.

“Well it looks like they are mostly dea…”

“KILL THEEEEEM!!!!!”  I shouted before he could finish his sentence.

Startled, my neighbor grabbed the broom from my hands and began to step on and smash crickets.  As much as I wanted to help with the killing, I decided to be his eyes instead. I stood on the other side of the door and pointing and shouting every time I saw a cricket move.  When Patricio picked up my garbage can to get the crickets hiding underneath, Sarge bolted out, frightened.

“Do you want me to kill that?”  He asked raising the broom.

“NO!”  I grabbed the broom to stop him.  “Leave the lizard!” 

Three days have passed now and it seems that crickets are still materializing in my apartment.  Last night, one snuggled into bed with me.  It’s going to be a long winter.