Roaches in the Shower

The visit south wasn't as dreadful as I expected, which I also expected. It was depressing in a couple of very specific ways about which I'm not fully prepared to write, but not as horrible or humiliating as anticipated. Everyone was on their best behavior, and the only person who behaved badly was me. I had a bit of an episode during which I cracked and said a few asshole things. The following story preceded the episode. While publishing it here makes me a bigger asshole, it does fit into a better story than the actual asshole episode. So, here goes. The Asshole of the Week is Me, for this story:

While I’m taking a shower, a cockroach falls on me.

Lest you not get the full force of this statement, let me explain to you that this was one one of those three inch long, blackish-red, crayfish-sized cockroaches. They like to live in the sewers, rather than your pantry, which explains its presence in the tub. Still, you don't want them raining on you in the shower.

The cockroach fell on me and I leaped, dripping wet from the shower to find something to scoop it out. I grabbed a toilet paper tube from the garbage. In one swoop, I coaxed the roach into the tube and pitched the tube and the roach in the general direction of the garbage can. I was too creeped out to consider using the toilet bowl as a disposal device.

When I went back to the shower, another roach scrambled around the sides as if it were left behind in Noah's flood. I retrieved the toilet paper tube to get him out as well. This time, I picked up the garbage can and carried it closer to the tub for a faster transfer. As I dropped this second roach into the garbage, the other scrambled onto my hand.

Yes, I shrieked. Not because I’m a girly girl who hates bugs, but because I was furious. I shriek again when I get into the shower and notice the roach spots on the sides of the tub. Then I scrub myself raw.

The towel I used feels rough and smells stale with mildew. I’ve pointed this out before, but am told that they are clean. They probably were when pulled out of the drier last year. Now, they have become rough and smell like the underside of an old house.

One of the roaches, or perhaps its cousin, runs across my path when I open the bathroom door. I checked my shoes and jiggled my suitcase to scare off the rest of the roach family, much like people do for scorpions in the desert.

In the hall, I think a hippopotamus has taken a huge messy crap on the floor very recently. The carpet is a golden beige, an unobtrusive yet warm color. The stain is dark grayish brown and uneven. Brown spatters decorate the wall creating the sort of effect that Jackson Pollack would have had he worked in poo. I inquired about this. The stains on the carpet are from a water pipe leak in the attic. The water seeped down through the walls to the concrete slab where it sat, soaking the carpet. “And on the wall?” I ask.

“Dog slobber.”

Although I knew the stains on the floor were water stains, and the spatter dog slobber, I could not escape the feeling that an incontinent hippo had unleashed his bowels. I leaped from one lighter spot to another, and washed my feet later.

In the bedroom, I turned on the overhead light and saw that the floor stain has made its way in there. Behind the door, the remnants of cockroaches decorated the cobwebs. A whole body was caught in the web next to the bookcase.

I picked up the phone and called my aunt. “I have to be evacuated,” I said to her.

“What’s goin’ on,, doll?” she asked. I told her.

“Well come on back, sweetie,” she replied. “I feel dirtier after I take a shower at your mother’s house, too.”