Shameless

Don't set foot on the path of the wicked; don't proceed in the way of evil ones. -- Proverbs 4:14

It is no secret that I dislike cockroaches. (biggest. understatement. ever.)

Actually, it's more like a big ugly phobia. When I am confronted with a-- Okay, first of all, I refer to them as Evil Hell Beasts, or EHBs for short. Just saying (or thinking) the 'c' word is enough to make me shudder and squirm.

Anyway, when I am confronted with an EHB, there is usually a lot of jumping and screaming... and today was no exception. I don't know what has gotten into the little bastards, but they keep finding their way into our house and that is not okay.

This evening, just before I started cooking dinner, I looked up and saw one in the living room. Cue the jumping and screaming. My daughter, 8 years old and maddeningly level-headed (AT TIMES), calmly took my arm and ushered me out of the room, saying, "Don't look at it. Just go cook dinner."

I took this to mean that she was going to deal with The Issue, but she just sat down and started playing her video game again. With a definite note of panic in my voice, I told her to "Kill it!" I have no shame, folks.

She said, "I will not kill it! I'll catch it and let it go in the grass."

This sounded like the stupidest thing I'd ever heard, but I couldn't argue with her. It's not like I was going to kill the thing myself and I couldn't have it running around the house. She grabbed a tissue and tried to catch it, but she only succeeded in chasing it under a living room speaker. So, she went back to her video game. Come on!

I thought I'd be safe in the kitchen, but the next thing I know, the EHB is cruising around the bar and into the kitchen WITH me! Again, there was jumping and screaming. We're not talking about little fake screams here. Before this was over, my throat hurt from the screaming.

Then began this awful dance of Lila trying to catch the EHB. The EHB hiding until she gave up. And then the EHB chasing me around the kitchen so that I jumped and screamed. A lot.

I think the worst part was when Lila tried to catch the thing and it accelerated and she giggled and said, as though this were somehow endearing, "They are fast little suckers!" I almost vomited.

I finally declared to anyone who would listen that I was not going back into the kitchen until it was gone. I even texted Doug and told him that I hoped he wasn't very hungry because I couldn't cook dinner while that thing was trying to kill me-- er, I mean 'touch' me. I even thought about going to a neighbor's house and asking him to come and rescue me (they weren't home).

At one point, Lila said to me, with a great deal of exasperation, "You're afraid of a little bug! . . . Well, it's medium, but it's NOT going to hurt you!"

Clearly, she doesn't understand the irrational aspect of phobias. By the time Doug got home from work, I was standing in the front yard (increased heart rate and sweating - no joke). The first words I said to him were, "I'm not going back into the house until it's dead."

Praise God, Doug finds this little "quirk" of mine endearing. He dealt with The Issue and I was able to come back inside and cook dinner. It took about half an hour before I stopped periodically whimpering and shuddering.