Confession

March 23, 2005 - 12:48 am 3 Comments

I posted this on a message board a while back and meant to post it here too, but I forgot.

Okay, a lot of y’all have problems with spiders and cruelly, evilly, and with malice I post pictures of spiders in the threads discussing your phobias. Like kids drawn to a train wreck you click my links and I sit in my little chair and quietly giggle.

What you don’t know is the dark secret that’s been haunting me for years.

I have a desperate and mortal fear of roaches.

I don’t mind the little German ones. What I’m talking about are those big palmetto bugs, the nasty huge red ones that fly. When I encounter one, no matter how loudly the rational part of my brain screams into my ear, “It’s just a little bug and you are a big person and it’s not out to get you!”, the reptilian portion of my psyche is yammering away ten times louder in my other ear: “SCREAM AND RUN AWAY LIKE A LITTLE GIRL BECAUSE IT’S GOING TO FLY AT YOUR FACE, AT YOUR FAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE!”

At which point, even if I’ve managed to keep myself under control for 10 seconds and the roach has long since skittered away from the light, I burp out a little shriek and then spend the next 30 minutes shaking my head sadly at my totally involuntary reaction. I simply cannot help the screaming. I could be walking through a room filled with TNT and know that any loud noise would lead to my demise and I would scream anyway. It’s like closing your eyes when you sneeze. Screaming at the sight of a roach. Same thing. Reflex.

When I was a bachelorette I used to call my neighbors over to take care of roaches in my house. The guy in the garage apartment behind me was very kind. I’d tap at his door around midnight, ashy-faced and babbling incoherently. “Roach again?” he’d ask. I’d nod wildly. He’d drop what he was doing and come take care of it. He was a really nice guy except for his propensity to brandish a shotgun at the planes flying overhead.

Another issue is that I must never ever hear the actual squishing noise. When Hub goes to stomp on a roach, I run into the other room with my fingers in my ears and yell, “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” until he says it is safe.

So there you go. My Achilles heel. I hate roaches. And I live in Texas surrounded by massive oak trees, which are the preferred habitat of discriminating palmetto bugs everywhere. And I scream a lot.

3 Responses to “Confession”

  1. Kathryn Says:

    Oh yes, me too! I often sing Christmas carols when I plug my ears. Can’t stand the squish, nope, not for me!

    And it’s not the flying that freaks me out, it’s how damn fast they RUN. Gives me shivers just to think about it.

  2. Kate Says:

    Oh, how I relate to this post! I just had to go after one of these creatures from the bowels of hell last night. I usually use 3/4 can of bug spray, throw a gob of wet paper towels over the beast while its in its death throes and quickly transpose it to two plastic bags which immediately go into the outside garbage can. If I miss on the first try with the paper towels. I sometimes have to find someone to remove it because I’m too grossed out to deal with it anymore. And yes, the speed at which they move is god awful!

  3. Paula Says:

    You all have not heard anything about fear. I am in Georgia. I lived in a nice townhome for a year and decided to move into a larger one in the same complex. All the four bedrooms are on the end and the Savannah River runs alongside the one my family moved into. There is a huge tree hanging over ours. I have been there three weeks and last night made “palmetto bug” #10. My landlord will not come spray either. My hubby usually kills them for me but he is away for work so, sadly my six year old son braves the beasts for me. I spray them and he dons a rubber glove to get them gor me and then my stomach rolls and I spend the rest of the night on the toilet and talking to mom and dad to calm myself down. Sad huh??