It’s Buggy Down Here

My vision was foggy, as it always is when I first wake. Squinting my eyes in an attempt to focus, two things finally came to view:

1. A smiling Baby Sasha, peeking in between the comforter we use and the pillow I usually have over my head while I’m sleeping. 
2. On the wall behind her: A gigantic cockroach.

It may have been the half-asleep haze I was still in, but I swear the thing was the size of a frisbee. Like, it could swoop down, snatch Sasha and fly off with her. I knew better than to jump up and take immediate action. First off, I’m 47-years-old, so no action I perform can be characterized as “immediate”. I generally need to stretch before any strenuous activity, such as blinking. Secondly, Sasha sleeps in her own room now, so Evgeniya must have already changed and fed her, then, in a nefarious plot to wake me up before my alarm was set, plopped her in our bed. That meant my wife was most likely nearby, though I had neither the ability nor the motivation to turn my head and confirm it.

Trust me when I say that bringing a cockroach to my wife’s attention doesn’t benefit anyone. The first time she saw a genuine Florida “palmetto bug” (a common euphemism for what should be our state animal), her scream could probably be heard in Sarasota.

So I had to stay cool. Calm. No big movements. 

“Good morning, Bubby,” I tried to say cheerfully yet calmly, though my voice is awfully throaty in the morning. “So, your mom wouldn’t happen to be right behind me or anything, would she?”

I heard nothing, so I slowly crawled out of the comforter, picked up Sasha, and eased out of the room before the death frisbee got us. Evi saw me walk back in there with a can of Raid. 

“Oh my God. What’s going on? There’s a cockroach, isn’t there?”

“Calm down, it’s going to be fine.”

In the past, I’ve actually caught roaches, spiders, and other vermin in a glass and set it free outside. But ever since we’ve had Sasha, I’ve pretty much given them all Death Sentences. And even if I wanted to catch this bastard, he had gotten too high up on the wall for me to reach. He was going to have to get the gas. Which he did. The roach fell on the ground behind a trash can and a few books. I gave him a few seconds to die, then looked under the garbage can for him. He wasn’t there.

Under the books? Not there.

Under my briefcase near the books? Not there.

Goddammit.

My wife has no sympathies toward roaches. If I told her I killed it, she’s going to want to see a dead body. He must’ve crawled somewhere before he bought the farm. And, as of this writing, he’s still MIA. (She won’t know this until this essay is published.)

That’s only my second-worst roach-related story this past week. A few days ago, while eating breakfast before work, I heard my wife scream. It wasn’t quite like the screams she’d uttered before. I couldn’t put my finger on the difference. Regardless, I figured it was probably bug-related, so I got up to help.

“Okay okay, where is it?”

“AAAAAAUUUGH!!”

“WHERE IS IT?”

“IT’S IN SASHA’S MOUTH!!”

Oh shit.

“Well, get it out!!”

“AAAAAAUUUUGH!!”

I was panicking a little, but I did have a moment of clarity where I knew if Evi had to decide between saving our baby’s life and touching a roach, Sasha was a goner. I ran from the dining table, leapt over the couch, and jammed my finger in her mouth. I pulled out a couple of roach wings and legs. Sasha was crying, but at least my wife was still there with her helpful screaming.

“AAAAAAUUUUGH!!”

“Goddammit, at least hold her!” I reached in again, I got the back of a roach out. I reached in again. I got nothing. 

She swallowed.

Then cried some more. She had pieces of roach all over her face. I wanted to vomit. I guess this is parenthood.

By the way, we don’t live in a roach motel. This is just how it is in Florida, especially if there’s been a few consecutive days of rain. The bastards just find a way inside.

And, apparently, Sasha still hasn’t found anything too gross to stick in her mouth.

The Evi Breaks Everything Update: I have an iPad and an iPhone, so I have two Apple Lightning chargers next to my side of the bed in order to charge them every night. Well, had. I went to bed late one night this past week to find one of the chargers missing. I found out the next morning that one of Evi’s charger cables went bad, so she appropriated one of mine. Apparently I now have to choose which device to charge every night.

Well, had. I went into the bedroom tonight to find my lone charger plugged into her iPhone. 

“What the hell?”

“My charger isn’t charging my phone.”

“You mean your charger that was my charger that worked perfectly well a couple of days ago is now broken?”

“Can you not? Yes, it doesn’t work.”

For the record, I’ve never in my life had a single charger cable go bad on me. I’ve heard rumors about Lightning cables not being sturdy, but I’ve been an iPhone user since 2012 with nary a problem. And, since I worked in wireless for several years, I know who’s at fault 99% of the time a problem happens: the user. And some users suck.

I used to have a dickload of Lightning cables, also owing to my time in wireless. But over the last couple of years my supply has diminished as a certain wife of mine has yanked, frayed and destroyed several of them, all while taking zero responsibility for their demise.

“They’re so cheaply made! Apple does this intentionally to make more money!”

All I can do is sigh. And go to Amazon.com to shell out money for an industrial strength iPhone charging cable. I’ll let you know how it holds up. If it doesn’t, I may have to start ordering such cables by the bushel.