Tuesday, June 06, 2006

666 uber species

OK, everyone knows that cockroaches are the true inheritors of the earth. That's a given. But this morning something disturbingly bizarre happened. I think there's a new Uber Species!

Despite the fact that I keep a relatively clean apartment, never let trash accumulate, keep all food put away, and wash cans and bottles before putting them in the trash, I've found a few of the vile creatures in "hotels" placed strategically around my kitchen. Up to this point, I've never actually seen one in the room I now occupy. (In my previous room in the same house, I saw plenty of them! But that was, I imagined, because my room faced the next door neighbors mega-trash cans and was directly above my landlady's kitchen.)

Anyhoo, last night I came home, flipped on the light and walked up the flight of stairs into my tiny kitchen, only to catch the movement of something LARGE racing into the sink! I'm the kind of person who nearly pukes at the sight of them, so it numbed my brain to realize that I was going to have to have a shoot-out with this home invader. I grabbed a can of RAID, or whatever the Japanese equivalent is to that American brand name, and cautiously stalked it as it ran for cover behind my little cooktop stove. I got in one good blast before it disappeared.

"Oh crap," I thought to myself. "Now where did it go?" It completely disappeared, and I thought it had escaped into some ill-fitting wall trim. So I opened my shoji to escape from the kitchen into my room, slamming it shut behind me.

A few minutes later I carefully slid the shoji open and saw the Beast, lying on the floor, on its back, in its death throes. I promptly shot it a second time with the roach spray to put it out of its misery, poured myself a drink, and retreated back into my room.

During the night I woke up a couple of times thinking, "Ah geez, now I'm going to have to pick the damn thing up and throw it in the trash!" You've gotta understand something here. . .I'm a total wuss about insects! (Many years ago, after my divorce, I once called my ex to come over to my apartment to trap and release a very large spider that was terrorizing me! Thankfully, he was kind enough to do it!)

So, you can imagine my shock and horror this morning when I slid open the shoji, and. . .and. . .there was NO DEAD ROACH! It was gone!!! I looked everywhere and couldn't find it! What kind of cockroach was this thing? It was on its back, DYING from two direct hits from my AK-47 can of RAID! And now it's gone??? What kind of nonsense is that?

I know yesterday was 6-6-6. Could this have been the Beast? Or is there a new uber species of cockroach in Tokyo that's impervious to the, formerly, deadly spray?

2 comments:

California Kayaker Magazine said...

Perhaps you should have stomped on it when it was first lying on it sback. This way you both get to confirm it is dead and get to use less chemicals.

Anonymous said...

Chances are that it managed some final breath of life to crawl away after the initial poison or more likely it was infact carried away by it's comrades to be consumed or recycled into nesting materials depending on the type it is.