To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee, And revery.
The revery alone will do, If bees are few.
--Emily Dickinson

Sunday, May 27, 2012

My new phobia.....

It's not much fun when you discover new weaknesses about yourself. I don't normally think of myself as a fearful person. Heights don't bother me. Neither do snakes, spiders or dark, close spaces. I love fast, high roller coasters and theme park rides that make your toes curl. Death doesn't even bother me  much. It will come when it's supposed to and everyone faces it eventually. So imagine my surprise when I walked into our Texas garage and began screaming in a high-pitched tone, most associated with animals in pain and prepubescent girls. Yes, I was screaming like a girl. Over what you might ask? A giant cockroach.

I know what you're thinking. It's an insect, big deal. Except in Texas everything, even the roaches are bigger. It's probably the warm climate because they just don't grow that huge in places that freeze regularly. I've seen and squashed my fair share of roaches. Those weren't a big thing. But these are ginormous. In Texas, they can grow up to two inches in length. Did I mention they have wings? So if you go to crush them, they just fly off, usually in the direction of your head. (Enter screaming here.) If they were just smaller, they wouldn't bother me so much. But they're like every magnified science textbook picture you've ever seen, you know the ones that illustrate small insects and they're reproduced so large that it grosses you out? That's what it's like with these Texas-sized critters. Everything about them is magnified. And bigger in a cockroach is not necessarily better.

When I explain my new-found phobia to my bench buddy, the guy I chat with while I wait to pick my girls up from school, he tells me that his mother was bitten on the stomach by a giant cockroach. And it got infected and formed some sort of weird puss pocket. Okay, so now they bite. Great.

But don't worry, I have an appointment already set up with an exterminator. Until then, my husband gets to traipse out to the garage freezer at night. It's too risky for me to go. The high-pitched screaming might just wake the neighbors.

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