There's Never a Hero Around When you Need One

It was midnight in Los Angeles. Time to hit the hay. Man, was I sleepy. I was just about to descend the stairs when I realized I was eye-level with Franz Kafka's main character in The Metamorphosis clinging to the stairwell ceiling. It was a monster, I tell you!

My first thought was OHMYGODOHMYGODOHMYGOD HE'S A MONSTER!!!!! In fact, I think my face resembled that spill stain on Significant Snail's stove the other day.

My second thought was, "Where is my camera? Because when I blog about this adventure I'm about to dive into, I'm gonna need a picture!"

The problem? The monster was hanging between me and my camera, and I wasn't about to walk underneath that behemoth, have it fall on my head and get tangled up in my hair. I'd have screamed like a banshee (that simile in honor of Authoring Auctioneer's post about the correct usage of "like"), rudely disturbing my sleeping roommate.

See, if this were in Sacramento, I could scream for help and my husband would ride in on his white horse and slay the dragon with his mad lancing skillz. However, this was not Sacramento and the last time I called upon a roommate in L.A., it resulted in two chickens running around the house screaming with the heebie jeebies and "You do it!", "No! You do it!". That, plus my guilt over waking up someone who had to get up at 4am overpowered (just barely) my fear of having to do the deed myself.

My squirm count escalated as I strategized how I was going to kill this thing. And I HAD to kill it (sorry, Scratch Bags, I know how you don't like to kill anything, including bugs). If I merely chased it off somewhere, I would never NEVER get to sleep.

I found some Raid underneath the sink and decided I would spray it to death. It was too big for me to crush with a shoe. Let me emphasize that it was too big for ME to crush with a shoe. I was getting more and more creeped out by the minute and when that happens, I have to be further and further away from it as I do damage. Therefore, it is essential that I kill it ASAP. Otherwise there is a turning point at which I am completely immobilized into a sweaty, shaking and useless mess. I would stand there paralyzed while peeing on the carpet and requiring some sort of mental hospitalization. So the stress of THAT thought is enough to motivate me to kill.

I sprayed at Satan on the ceiling, filling the house with noxious fumes, certain the smell would choke my roommate out of his slumber. The monster clicked across the stairwell ceiling and I continued to spray (PSSSSSssss!). He crawled along the carpet and down the hallway (PSSSSSSsss!). He slipped in between some boxes at the end of the hallway. (PSS- - ) I stopped, and listened to him shuffle around between the boxes. It sounded like a rat crunching on peanut shells. I wanted him to come out. I needed him to come out. My sole purpose at that moment was to end this evil being's life.

He emerged from the boxes and crawled toward me on the carpet. I walked backwards (PSSSSsssss!) He turned around and crawled away from me (PSSSssss!). He made a right turn into the bathroom and I followed him as he crawled along the bottom of the sink cabinet (PPPSSSsss!) and skittered along the side of the cabinet, disappearing behind the toilet.

Well, now what? By now I'm gagging on poisonous fumes. I walked into the bathroom, scrunching up my toes so he couldn't get his mealy armor in between them in case he came scurrying out in a surprise attack. Several times I walked in, toes curled, and backed out, too afraid to check behind the toilet. Or I'd take one step in and bend over to peek around the bathroom cabinet and pull back while wincing from the carpet-soaked Raid fumes in the hallway.

I finally made the leap and peered around the toilet bowl to see the monster on his back with his legs flailing around. How does that happen? I mean he was upright a minute before. How does he wind up on his back? Does he do the dramatic swoon like Daffy Duck whose just been shot, twirling around, saying "Ugh, you got me! Goodbye cruel world!" Why wouldn't he just stop crawling? What's with the flip and the theatrics? Drama queen.

(PSSSSSssssssss!) He wouldn't stop flailing. I had to figure out the next step of Operation Monster Reduction. What would I do if this guy finally petered out? And if you think for one minute I could pick him up with a paper towel WITH MY BARE HANDS you are sadly mistaken, fella. I don't care that I wouldn't actually be touching him with my bare hands. I had too much time to think about his crunchiness and would therefore require a shovel.

Only I don't have a shovel. It's a condo for Chrissakes, what would I be doing with a shovel? Oh, killing bugs, yes that's very funny. You sure are quite the comedian when you want to be. In any case, I don't have any place to put a shovel. But never mind that, there's a squirrelly cockroach in the bathroom right now and I need to find something to kill him and transport him out of the house because there is NO WAY I'm going to throw him in the trash. Since he's clearly not dying anytime soon, I can't risk throwing him into what would essentially be a life-giving force, a veritable pantry for him to nosh on overnight, gaining back his strength and in perfect cartoon likeness, pop back to his normal body fullness and track me down while I slept and crawl all over me and in and out of my orifices. Ick and Shudder!

So I grab the Swiffer, march back into the bathroom and start pounding him with the flat bottom of the tool. (See Orion? The Swiffer is awesome!) He keeps wiggling his legs and I keep pounding the floor which is right over my sleeping roommate's bedroom, although he hasn't managed to wake up during this whole ordeal.

After several stampings, the monster appears to be succumbing to my shock and awe. Only one or two legs remaining wiggling. OK, now I had to find something to scoop him up with. Again, wishing I had a shovel right now. I dug around the garbage (something I bet the monster wished he could have done as a sort of death row last meal kind of thing). In my bag for recycling, I found some broken down soda boxes, but for me a 14-inch-long piece of paper didn't put the monster far enough away from my hand. What if he snapped out of it one last time to land me a death blow, like in the movies. See? I told you I get all freaked out the longer it takes. I lose all irrationality.

I settle on a long-handled broom and dustpan, brush the nearly dead thing into the pan and carry him straight out in front of me (my arms aren't long enough, but they'll have to do). I open the sliding glass door and hurl him out into the abyss three stories below. I apologize for not having my wits about me to take a picture of the carcass for your viewing pleasure, but here is an unreasonable facsimile:

I know! I told you he was big!