Holy Cockroach

Franz Kafka's renowned Metamorphosis begins with the phrase "As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into a giant cockroach."  I actually liked Metamorphosis.  You should go read it.

I thought about Kafka this morning, as I spent the first of my waking hours staring at a giant cockroach myself.

I'd been awake for roughly 20 minutes and was just finishing getting ready when I saw the thing crawling across the bathroom wall.  I screamed, jumped backwards...and realized that my morning was about to take a dramatic turn.

I ran out of the room, got a plastic cup and magazine from the kitchen, and returned to the bathroom.  And I stared at it.  And I stared at it.  I waited for it to crawl down to the floor, and watched it crawl higher and higher along the wall near the ceiling.  And I stared at it.

And after 10 minutes of staring at it, I knew that I was never going to be able to catch this creature.

So I called my friend Rachel, to no success.  So I called maintenance, and put in a work order for them to come and spray for cockroaches...even if this is the only one I've ever seen, I've heard enough horror stories to not want to take any chances where enormous bugs are involved.  Giving up all of my dignity in one fell swoop, I asked if maintenance can catch bugs for people.  "Well, we can't really answer that question since we just put in the work orders...that's something you'd need to look into locally."  OK good.  Back to staring at the cockroach.  After a couple minutes, I stick my head out the door to see if any maintenance guys are wandering around, particularly Reuben...he's the head of maintenance for my part of the complex, and we're on friendly enough terms after the infamous flooding incident that I know he'd come in and catch a cockroach for me in a heartbeat.  Too bad I don't have a direct number for Reuben.  I look at my clock: 8:10.  I usually leave for class at 8:30.  In a last ditch effort, I call my friend Katrina.

"Hello?"


"Katrina?  Have you left for campus yet?"


"Ah, I'm just leaving right now, I'm running late...what's up?"


"OK...are you afraid of bugs?"


"Umm, no?"


"I realize this is a stupid question...but can you come here on the way to campus and help me catch a cockroach."


"Umm...sure!"


Thank the good Lord.  Help was on the way.

I spent the next 45 minutes sitting in my bathroom, staring at the cockroach from a distance.  My apartment IS on the way to campus from Katrina's apartment, but morning traffic still makes it quite a hike.  But she was my only hope, and I was determined not to lose the cockroach in the meantime.  And so I watched it.  For 45 minutes.

A lot of thoughts run through your mind when you have nothing to do but stare at an enormous bug for nearly an hour.  Thoughts like..."I can't believe you couldn't just catch this thing yourself"..."WHY don't you have more guy friends, you're such a failure!"..."Do cockroaches bite?"..."This is stupid"..."You should have gotten a roommate, then they could catch the bugs"..."As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams..."


Finally, at 8:47am, Katrina arrived, and bless that girl's heart, caught that dang bug in under a minute.  We ran it to the dumpster, threw both our bags in my car, and rushed to campus for class.

On a good day, it takes me exactly 10 minutes to get to campus, by cutting through the ritzy neighborhood that lies adjacent to the SMU campus.  Unfortunately, we caught just enough stoplights and had to wait for just enough left turns that we were pulling into the parking garage at 9am (still better than it could have been).  But the class we were heading toward was our Systematic Theology class...that class where we were told on the first day that we would immediately fail the course if we were found using our computers for anything besides note taking, and where students walking in late are typically received with all the coldness of the North Pole.  Walking in at 9:07, we peeked through the classroom door and could tell that class had already started.  Great.

I took a deep breath and opened the door, and Katrina and I shuffled in with our heads bent and our metaphorical tails between our legs, and filed into our seats in the back corner of the classroom.  The professor's voice stopped just long enough at our entry to be disconcerting, but I suppose we looked contrite enough that we got a better reaction than some students who saunter in unaffected at ten past.  As the lecture droned on, Katrina and I unzipped our backpacks with the most trepidation you can imagine, trying to make as little noise as possible.  I even pulled out my headphones and plugged them into the computer for fear of a start-up noise drawing further attention to our lateness.  And so class continued, until 9:50, and we made our glorious departure.

Taking Katrina back to my apartment for her car and making a detour through McDonalds for some much-needed breakfast was just enough to make me late to work; thankfully, my boss is pretty flexible on time.  I actually ended up leaving work an hour and a half early simply because all of my work was finished and my boss couldn't think of anything else for me to do.  After work, I tried to buy a Christmas tree on sale, but discovered at the store that the sale doesn't start until Sunday (fail),  and so I came back to the apartment exhausted, Christmas tree-less, and jumping at every shadow.  I finally managed to fall asleep on the couch, took a 2 hour nap, and woke up feeling distinctly less alarmed by the morning's bug fiasco.

The rest of the evening was actually very enjoyable; my friend Miranda and I got tacos for dinner, then went shopping at Old Navy because we both needed winter clothes and I had a 30% off coupon...I acquired a green pea coat (which I've been wanting for about 3 years), a red crocheted beret, a blue sweater, a couple tank tops, and a brown knit cape-like sweater thing.  I think my total savings were around $80 ($30 from the coupon and $50 from other sales going on in the store), so even if it was a somewhat expensive shopping trip it was well worth it...and now I have some good key winter pieces to add to my wardrobe.  We finished out the night by swinging by The Cheesecake Factory (for cheesecake, naturally) which we ordered to-go, and ate while watching The Big Bang Theory at my apartment (where, incidentally, I haven't seen another cockroach since this morning, and believe me, I've been looking).

My hope on the cockroach front is that it was just one fluke bug who crawled inside somehow because it's finally starting to get cold here in Texas, and indoor bugs are becoming more common.  At least, that is the thought that I'm desperately clinging to, for my own sanity.  Because otherwise, all I can do is sit timidly in the corner of my sofa, staring around the room and feeling invisible things crawling on me...