Roach Motel

April Showers blog wrote about a pet roach. Yeah, I said "a pet roach." Definitely not HER pet roach, though.

Can you imagine keeping a roach for a pet?

I can't.

I saw enough roaches when I lived in Tennessee to last me for the rest of my life. I worked in a restaurant that should have been shut down by the health department. Rats and roaches ran rampant.

Restaurant fumigated regularly, but not effectively. The day before the exterminator was to arrive, we sealed all the cupboard doors with plastic wrap. Where were the roaches? In the cupboards! Where could the roach killer not reach? The cupboards!

So we had some great-granddaddy roaches crawling around.

When I came into work one day, a crowd of people was staring and pointing at a point on the wall. I wondered at the reason for this odd behavior.

When I came closer, I saw why they were all gawking.

The biggest roach I have ever seen was sedately walking up the wall. In memory, this disgusting creature is as big as my thumb, but memory probably exaggerates. Whatever its precise dimensions, it was huge. Huge and armor plated.

I wanted to kill it and wondered why no one was doing anything to halt its progress. They were all mesmerized by the Granddaddy of All Roaches. Just as I arrived, GAR disappeared above the ceiling tiles.

For some reason, my appetite for supper had vanished.

For weeks I worried that GAR would drop down my neck. I can feel those imaginary feet even yet and I'm squirming in my chair.

I looked at Google Images to find a roach for illustration purposes, but my skin crawled just looking at them. UGH! I'll pass on the upload.