Why I could never be a Buddhist.

Yesterday, while Henry was napping, I was leaving my bedroom (where I work) to get a glass of water from the kitchen (where I obtain glasses of water), and there, on the floor in our hallway, was a waterbug.

For those of you lucky to never have experienced the unique horrors of the waterbug, let me tell you a little story. Once there was a cockroach who grew to monstrous proportions—say, 3-4 inches in length, 1-2 inches in width--with long spiny scrabbly legs and fucking WINGS that enabled it to FLUTTER ABOUT sickeningly and make Alice SCREAM HER HEAD OFF.

Basically, yeah, they’re gigantic, meaty cockroaches, that live in the basements and walls of NYC apartment buildings, and emerge periodically from the slimmest of cracks in the walls or around fixtures to die. It is their dying wish that before they expire, they watch humans scream and flail their limbs. Smelling our fear, they can finally die in peace. Fuckers.

So this waterbug was, thank God, on its back, which meant it had breathed its last putrid, breath, and had joined its ancestors on the shorelines of the River Styx. I ran to the kitchen to unroll the entire paper towel roll. You see, when picking up a dead waterbug—which I have done exactly one other time, and that was only because my cat had dissected it and I didn’t realize that the giant bug I thought I was picking up was actually the TORSO of a waterbug, but where was its head, OH GOD WHERE WAS ITS HEAD—sorry. Where was I? Yes. When picking up a dead waterbug, it is essential that you avoid being able to feel any of its contours or textures, be it the chitinous exoskeleton or its meaty underbelly with the legs GET IT OFF ME! GET IT OFF—

Okay. So you don’t want to feel it, because then you risk dropping it in horror, and then you risk it landing somewhere on your person, and that as we all know leads to death, because there’s no reason to live once that happens. So you get a whole roll of paper towels, wrap them around your hand so that you have created a Paper Mitt of Protection, and you lean over carefully, and quickly scoop it up, hoping that it wasn’t only pretending to be dead.

Which this one was. Pretending, that is. To be dead.

When I touched the thing with my PMoP, it flipped over and ran right at me, over my toes, and past me.

Let me repeat: Over my toes. My toes. Right over them.

It blindly skittered around my hallway, attempting to climb the walls, falling back, fluttering in the air for a sickening moment or two, and then climbing again. Meanwhile, I was in the kitchen, doing my best imitation of Lucy Ricardo when she had just had a waterbug's legs ambling across her toenails. What, you never saw that episode? It's a hoot, my friend. As you probably guessed, Ricky saves the day.

Now, I have never actually killed one of these things. When I lived alone, I simply ran from my home, screaming, and hoped that when I returned, it would either be 1) dead or 2) gone. As long as I have lived with my husband, he has usually been home when a waterbug has emerged for its Make a Wish Foundation moment, because I made sure I always had a JOB, so I would be out of the house as much as possible, thus limiting my chances of exposure.

That’s how much I hate these things. I would rather spend my days in a cubicle—a nice, vermin-free cubicle—then risk encountering a waterbug. This is how sick I am. Now you know.

So! What with this gargantuan insect rushing about inside my house, I got busy! Making calls! First I called my friend Sarah, who wasn’t home. My hysterical message provided hours of entertainment at her house, I'm sure. Then I called some neighbors! Maybe they were sitting on their couches, hands folded in their laps, waiting for me to call and invite them over for some cockroach-smushing! Nope, they weren’t! Then I called my husband, who was no help at all. "Kill it!" he said, somewhat obviously.

I got out some roach spray that has been under our sink from before we moved in. Using every ounce of guts I had left, I got close enough to the thing, who was now running! Everywhere! Trying! To find! An exit! and I pressed down the nozzle—only to see that the can had no pressure left at all. Still I kept pressing, and the roach spray drip-driip-dripped down on the waterbug, who began to slow down, and then flipped over on its back to wave every single one of its horrible legs at me, and then died.

And then I ran away again. Then I went back. Then I ran away.

Finally, I managed to get it. I got it. It’s gone. But there will be another one. There’s always another one.

Comments

[getupgrrl]

Oh sweet bejeezus. OVER YOUR TOES. Help me mommy. Help me not vomit all over the keyboard.

[Melissa S]

I just pulled all the skin off my face as I read this. Gross.

OVER YOUR TOES! You should be wearing boots around the house at all times now.

I know what your husband was thinking: "When it crawls inside your glasses, then talk to me."

[sac]

Thank you for using "chitinous" in a sentence. Things like that make my day.

Oh, and hilarious, as always.

[bluepoppy]

*laughing* at "paper mitt of protection"

[Amy]

Oh god, with bug-phobic me and 2 bug phobic little girls, it would have sounded like a mass murder at our house. By the way, I find, that the septic system, via the toilet, makes a wonderful final resting place. That's where all the spiders go, because, you know, they like to pretend that they are dead too!

[lb]

I am waaaay too familiar with these things, since I grew up in a dank, damp part of the south (New Orleans, represent!)
I understand the PMoP and employ it all the time. I also do not believe in simply throwing the carcass away - nonono - you have to flush it or put it down the kitchen sink AND run the disposal! Those things will survive new-kew-ler war!! I know they can find a way out of my disposed coffee grounds and junk mail!! Gah! Now I'm all itchy!!

[Charla]

Paper Mit of Protection? Isn't that some new kind of birth control?

[KT]

Ug. We call them Palmetto Bugs...

I know *exactly* how you feel...

Small World, Big Bugs

Well, at least mine didn't touch me.

[Kira]

I employed the PMoP just today! A wasp had gotten in the house and I had hunted it down and killed it, behaving totally unafraid because my three sons were watching me with huge brown eyes of respect. After I swatted it down I picked it up with the aforementioned PMoP, but it wasn't thick enough, because the wasp gave a dying buzz of its wings in my hand. I FELT it through the paper and dropped it with a shriek, then STOMPSTOMPSTOMPED on it until it was dead, but by then the huge brown eyes of respect had changed to rolling eyeballs of distain.
Oh well.

[Bob]

FUCKING HILARIOUS! Cars were stopping in the street to see where the laughter was coming from.

We call 'em water roaches. Had one fly at me once. I still cringe at the memory years later.

[dr. dave]

I've never had a waterbug incident - just boring old standard issue suburban apartment roaches. There is a most excellent story in which one said roach decided it wanted for its final resting place to be buried inside a container of hot cocoa mix, but I'll spare you the details.

[jilbur]

First, no matter what, you still get to be a Buddhist. If you want. I promise.

Second: AIGHGHHAHAHHHHHHHhhgggggggkkkkggghrrrgh!!!!!

I won't be able to sleep tonight! Oh the curse of reading too-good writing! You have ruined my mind forever with your horribly kinesthetic descriptions!!

Someday I'll get even by talking about our citronella ant invasion last Halloween.

[Jo]

In Norfolk, we say "waterbug," and then smile knowingly at each other. Sometimes there are air quotes. Call it a daisy-legged prettybeetle if you want, it's just a Cretaceous-sized roach.

Did you know that, in a very quiet kitchen, late at night, you can hear them walking?

Tk. Tk. Tk tk tk tk.

I salute your bravery in the handling of the situation. And now I must heave into my cupped hands.

[Jennifer]

LOL! OMG, I was rolling on the floor, thankfully devoid of water bugs.

Do you guys have steroids in the water down there or somthin? Holy crap, I'd move if there was a chance one would get within a ten foot radius of me.

[Liz]

The palmetto bugs are so nasty, but for me, it's the spiders...

And they do not PLAY DEAD. Dead bugs are dead. What they do, what is significantly more horrible than bugs that play dead, is that they COME BACK TO LIFE. This is why enormous dead bugs that have not been ground to a paste must be FLUSHED and not merely thrown into the trash.

[Anna]

My skin crawls, and my Waterbug Incident is brought right back out of my repressed memories file. I'm at my folks' house, on the phone to my husband. No safer scenario, right? A massive waterbug appears on my ankle and zooms right up my pantleg, like it has really urgent business up there. I immediately lose all sense of reason. I hurl the phone across the room, tear my pants off and hurl them across the room, and swat frantically at my legs and butt, hopping up and down in what I hope is a bug-dislodging sort of way. I don't see the bug on me, but I don't see it anywhere else either, and this is alarming. And then my mom comes in and I explain to her why I'm half naked, jumping and flailing around in her living room. She accepts my explanation with the right amount of sympathetic exclamations, and then says hold still, and advances toward me, hand raised. I've been around enough to recognize the "you've got a bug on your neck" stance when I see it, and I flip out. She whacks at me, I jump around and whack myself, and then I tear off my shirt, my bra, and for good measure, my underwear. The bug, again, is seemingly not on me, but also not to be found anywhere else. I quiver with horror and revulsion for awhile, then pick up the phone, explain to my horrified husband what all the shrieking was about, take a marathon shower, and burn my clothes.

[alice]

Oh god no. That's the worst thing I ever heard. I must repeat getupgrrl's comment: Help me mommy. Help me.

[Mrs. Kennedy]

I think the most beautiful part of this story is that your screaming didn't wake up Henry from his nap.

[flea]

That's so weird, Dr. Dave. That's where *I* want my final resting place to be, too!

[alice]

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that. It did wake him up. He's good, but not that good.

[PinkDreamPoppies]

See, this is why I have a hard time being anything but a Buddhist: this story made me cry — the way the bug died was just so horrible. Then again, I get misty over road kill and had a really hard time moving a pile of dirt outside my significant other's window — even though she had terrible allergies because of said mound of dirt — because the dirt housed so many creatures. I'm such a softie.

[Jenn]

Okay, on your behalf, I just did the entire "OHMYGODOHMYGOD GET-IT-OFF-GET-IT-OFF!" dance for you. Just reading that it Crawled.Over.Your.TOES made it a must for me to do.

Of course, it was a bit tough to pull off since I am laughing myself to tears over reading your account.

Seriously, boots and an industrial size can of Raid are necessary in your home at all times now.

[Jess]

Uuuuuggghhhh!!! We call them palmetto bugs down in Florida... I'm currently studying abroad in the Netherlands, but I'm going home in two weeks. Members of the roach family seem to find it too cold here in the lowlands, but you have just reminded me of the horror which awaits... eek.

I, too, had a very near miss with a palmetto bug, except that mine was flying. I was lying on my stomach in bed around midnight, propped up on my elbows innocently reading a book, when it flew out from behind my curtain in a burst of fluttering wings. Before I was able to pull myself out of 'book world' and back into 'real world' ("what's that?"), the thing had flown straight into the pages of my book, bounced off them, and missed going inside my pajama top by about an eighth of an inch. I have never moved so fast. UGH.

[dawnkeyotie]

you are all weak. WEAK, i tell you.

i was sleeping on a relative's couch. i was nestled into what i like to call a blanket burrito - with only my face peaking out. it was summer, but there can not be enough protection from insects while sleeping. just as i was about to drift off to sleep.. i felt it. the raspy little scurry across my face. i was paralyzed with fear.. my mouth frozen into a perfect little "o". and then it CRAWLED ACROSS MY LIPS. at which point i leapt off the couch - flailing, screaming, and slapping myself all over. that little bastard died a death that no creature should ever experience. he was nothing but ground in, vaguely crunchy mush. but that's what he gets for leaving me with a phobia that i will never shake as long as i freaking live.

after i scrubbed my lips off of my face and then doused my head in rubbing alcohol.. i slept in my car.

and that was one of the funniest blogs i've ever read! but no thanks for the reminder.

[Rubber-Sol]

Okay so I sympathize with you girlfriend. All insect-related objects (real, plastic, or otherwise) creep me out. So listen to this one:

One day I was teaching, and I had a student squirming in her seat. Squirming, squirming, squirming to no end. Finally she ended up with her head on the table, and she was manically grabbing at her ear! I sent her to the nurse with a note that read, "Student feels something stomping in her ear."

My student never returned that day. She was rushed to the doctor to get a COCKROACH removed from her ear. Yes. Her ear!!!!

Okay. I'll shut up now. I just gave myself the chills (again).

[the mighty jimbo]

i'm guessing you're not a big fan of "fear factor."

[Cassandra]

Ok, here's what you do - take one of those magazine card inserts that fall out all over your house. Slide it gently unter the cockr..I mean waterbug. Lay a papertowel over the little bastard. Several layers if it makes you feel better, but you don't want to take too much time. Then take a shoe/boot/etc and slam it down on the primevel horror. You will end up with a digusting but tidy package, easy to dispose of in a (realtiely) sanitary fashion. Then disinfect the floor, shoe, yourself, the house, etc.

When they're coming out to die they can still move, but they are a little sluggish, enough so you can usually get the paper under them before they figure out what's going on.

[neko]

eeewww.....there was much shuddering and twitching going on while i was reading that. we don't have any waterbugs where i live THANK GOD. we have instead - cave crickets. cave crickets CANNOT BE KILLED BY CONVENTIONAL MEANS. seriously, those bastards just keep right on hopping around and being creepy no matter how much raid you pour on them. my mother insists that if you "snap them with a towel" it results in instant cave cricket death, but my towel-snapping skills are not up to par and i can't bring myself to come close enough to try. that's why i have a boyfriend who's at least slightly less horrified by the icky bugs than me.

[holly]

Oh God, you poor thing.

I used to live in NYC, and for a while I had an apt on west 8th street. Courtyard level. No screens on the windows. That courtyard was waterbug breeding grounds- I managed to block all that from my memory, thank you for bringing it back!

[jilbur]

Towel snapping?
Okay. I cannot reconcile myself to the thought of insect assasination bearing a superficial resemblance to locker-room hijinks.

Of course, now I am imagining the horrific moribund leg-waving lifeform being teased because it looks queer in its tiny brown-and-ochre gym suit. Maybe we can humiliate them to death? I saw something pretty close to that happen in junior high. Oh, wait--that was a human being. They are so much more vulnerable.

[Terri]

Our electricity went out last week. Two of the critters emerged within minutes of each other. And my husband killed them both WITH MY SHOE! The shoe has been shipped to Goodwill.

You know, as kids, my sister and I would put glasses over the bugs until our father got home, so he could pick them up. Needless to say, my mom gave away A LOT of glasses.

[Rana]

PMoP -- bwah!

I am usually of the put-a-glass-over-it-and-put-it-outside camp, but reading this post nearly triggered the GETITOFFAME! bug dance. Large bugs Do. Not. Belong. Inside. Eeee.

Worse though, is when there are LOTS of said bugs. I'd relate the stories of The Neverending Earwigs and The Great Cockroach Purge, but they would simply be disgusting, not funny.

[Rana]

Oh, and I think I would rather have poop on my nose than a bug in my clothes. Or a waterbug on my toes!

[Fantasy Football]

Belive me, there will be another one...:-S

[Julia S]

First of all, I once towel-snapped a very nimble fly to death. So take that, Karate Kid.

Second, Alice, honey, I meant to comment sooner but I had to burn my computer after reading your post. So you have door-to-door Christians AND flying roaches? Do I need to put the joke together for you, people, or can you take it from here?

Kisses... actually, maybe just a fond, distant wave tonight.

[sarah]

I read this while holding my sleeping six day old daughter, and nearly bobbled her little head off because I was laughing so hard.

THANK GOD there are no water bugs in Vancouver. Our cockroaches are the common or garden variety. Still very evil. Alsoplus disgusting are silverfish. EEEEEEWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!! When I see one on the bathroom floor I make my husband come in and dispose of it before I even finish peeing.

[Laura]

Never ever EVER trust a "dead" "waterbug". It's really a big-ass cockroach lying in wait.

[Oliquig]

I was told to come here and read this. Your bravery is amazing. I would have grabbed the child and left. I don't do bugs, I cannot speak of the terror of having one run across my foot.

[Lunasea]

OMG. OMG. OMG. I am standing on my chair writhing as I read this, and I'm on the other side of the country. Are you SURE you killed it? Are you SURE it's not coming back? Are you SURE it didn't fly over here to the West Coast? OMG.

I once had a flying cockroach in Hawaii do a kamikaze flight right at my face. I'm still healing from injuries sustained in the jump off the 2nd floor balcony.

[Tishie]

Creepy! Growing up in the interior of Alaska, I was only familiar with a limited number of types of bugs until adulthood, so living in other places has been educational and scary.

Gross Other Bug Experience #1: Age: 18. Living in Arizona for several months when pregnant with first child. Cockroaches in the apartment complex. No job. Each day filled by perching on couch with can of Raid in each hand, sleeping with Raid in hand.

GOBE #2: Age: 22. Three year old son plays outside during visit in Missouri. Removes shirt. I shriek, "OH MY GOD THERE ARE SPIDERS EATING HIS BACK! THEY ARE BURROWING INTO HIS BACK!!! SPIDERS!" They were ticks.

GOBE #3: Age: 23. Pregnant with second child, living in Oklahoma with newish husband (age: 23). Upgraded to the glass-with-book method to trap two sorts of scary looking black things (later revealed to be crickets and roly polies, via laughing husband).

GOBE #4: Age: 23. Second child a few weeks old, husband away for work. Having heard flesh-eating tales, am paranoid of brown recluse spiders. Cleaning up at night, smoosh something down into trash can, brown recluse runs over hand. Faint, bring self back to consciousness with foggy thought: it's probably crawling over you! GET UP GET UP GET UP DAMMIT! Spider never found, environment depleted, Raid stock price bolstered.

[dayment]

I would have named him, taken pictures of him, taken him for a walk.
But I'm sick like that.

Maybe I need kids.

[lizardek]

Oh man, you weren't kidding! These comments rock nearly as much as you do. ;)

[carla]

One of my coworkers used to be able to kill flies with a rubber band (since we're talking about unorthodox ways of killing insects). The first time he did it I thought it was a fluke, but I saw him do it many times after that. The flying rubber band of death!

[Reenie]

Once when I was about 16 years old, I was showering and saw one ON THE SHOWER HEAD! My mom was around the block (taking a walk) and came running because she heard my scream. I ripped the shower curtain & the shower curtain rod out of the wall and ran out of the bathroom with the curtain. I left the rod in the tub, I guess.

[Morphienne]

I am environmentalist, in the sense that I believe people should be able to get used to wildlife living side-by-side with them-- stopping for moose in the street, being bear-aware, accepting coyotes and wolves as part of the suburban landscape, like deer are...

But, you know... there are just some times when I think, No, this species should be COMPLETELY OBLITERATED from all places where humankind dwells. They can have the countryside, dammit. They should NOT be allowed the cities. Malarial mosquitoes are in this category. God knows cockroaches are, too.

And earwigs. Definitely earwigs. Nyahh. *shudders*

[Susan]

Went to visit a friend in Florida during college. She had vaguely said something about "palmetto bugs" in a phone conversation while we were making plans for a visit but it didn't saound dramatic, so it gave me no pause. Until I was napping peacefully in the hammock during the vening after spending time in the sun and the damn thing TROMPED ACROSS MY FACE! Let me tell you, getting out of a hammock gracefully is not an easy thing when you are fully possessed of all your faculties, but when you've just been vioalted by a BIG EFFING ROACH (let's face it, "palmetto bug" is a euphemism like "fixer-upper" is real-estate talk for "money-pit") you just CANNOT get your feet back on the ground fast enought. Needless to say I flew one way, that damn bug flew the other, and I ran screeching for the pool. <> Still gives me the heeby jeebys.

[Thel]

I lived way out in the sticks as a kid, and had to get up so early to catch the bus that it was usually still dark. In the early-morning dusk, our bright porch light attracted these--I don't know what they were; I think my mom called them bark beetles--but they were hideous, large, flying bugs. Their wings made a raspy noise, and they buzzed horribly as they bumped repeatedly into the porchlight cover. I was afraid of them, but -horrors!- I had to run right under their rattling, jerky swarm to get outside to the bus stop. They seemed so huge, to a poor tiny six-year-old! I used to beg my mom to turn off the porch light in hopes that they would disperse before my terrified sprint out to the bus stop.

Eesh.

[Chris]

Live in Japan.
Every cockroach is a waterbug. They all fly. And one- to two-inches is the norm, not the exception.
And invariably they jump at you whenever they get the chance.

[Brooke]

Although I went to school in Connecticut, my university had an intricate system of steam tunnels underground that provided the perfect environment for big-ass winged cockroaches.

At the beginning of sophomore year, I, all grimy from a day of moving into my new dorm room, decided to take a much-needed shower. Now, my eyesight is terrible and the time, I was in the habit of taking out my contacts before I showered. In my blindness, I made a horrific error:

Without realizing it, I got into the shower with a 2-3" flying cockroach.

About 5 minutes into the shower, I knocked over the shampoo and the roach made its presence known by FLYING UP ONTO THE DOOR OF THE SHOWER. I mean, this badboy was right at eye-level with me.

Freaked the fuck out, but not wanting to be denied my shower, I not only completely rinsed out my shampoo but I also took the time to apply conditioner. In retrospect, I can't believe I did that and I have no idea how I got out of that shower alive.

[WindyLou]

One of the main reasons I divorced my husband:

We were living in a 300 sq ft condo in Hawaii,(that isn't a typo - it was 300 sq ft.) home of the largest WaterBugs I have ever met. (having grown up in Memphis I have seen my share - they all lived at my grandmother's, but I digress) I am taking a monumental shit and therefore physically incapable of moving from my seat, lest there be more mess than waterbug guts. I began frantically screaming for help but my lazy-ass husband obviously had no prior dealings with water bugs, having grown up in Michigan. He refused to leave ESPN to save me from a fate worse than death, and left me there glued to my seat, feet in the air, toilet plunger in hand, to watch as that waterbug made its way around the entire bathroom and flew out the open window.