A little while back I mentioned my friend Cocky. Ok so maybe this friend didn't have a name and I didn't give him one but I seem to have just done so. And maybe this friend didn't have a gender, or at least a gender mentioned, but I seemed to have just decided on one, Cocky is he, whether he is or isn't, he is. Cocky made his appearance in the earlier post All Creatures are Bright and Beautiful and the Lord God Made them All. Do you see what I am getting at yet?
Yes Cocky is a Cockroach, and since I am not a cockorologist I cannot tell whether a cockroach is male or female, so I simply decide on a gender. Well there was also mention of there being more Cockroach like stories…and this post my friends, is going to one of them, (the only one actually, I thank the precious Lord that there is not another one!)
Ok sometimes I take a while to get to my point, rambling is fun :) but here's to the next cockroach encounter.
It was a hot Filipino night in the Pacheco house, but silence was all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. HA. I wish it was a mouse…and yes there were creatures stirring. You know the usually house lizards, ants, random little bugs, but the family still slept. The two Canadian daughters were sleeping soundly in their upstairs bed room…well until nature called…Janell, let's just call her Janell, Janell had to pee. So she got up off her bed and headed down the stairs, through the dark dinning room, around the corner into the dark kitchen, around another corner into the dark back room when she arrived to the bathroom door.
Like she always does, before entering the room, Janell reached her hand around the wall feeling around for the light switch. At last she found it! But it being a finicky switch it took a few tried to turn it on.
The light slowly flickered on and shone in the bathroom, and there! There on the vanity next to the sink was Cocky's brother's dad's sister's father's in-law's, cousin's niece's son's wife's father!!!! He stopped his movements right as the light turned on, his antenna things stopped their business mid air. Janell gasped in fright, stopped dead in her tracks and almost peed in the spot! Right there, in the doorways, a mere couple feet from the toilet she almost wet her pants. (well shorts actually, remember it was a hot night….sheesh stick with the program!) Her mind was racing! "What should I do? What can I do? What do I have to do?" her mind thought. "Go back to bed" was the first answer, the easy way out. But then again, she didn't actually really wet her pants (shorts… my goodness), she still really had to use that toilet. But the toilet was right beside the vanity and the Cocky's brother's dad's sister's father's in-law's, cousin's niece's son's wife's father was on the vanity's corner right beside the toilet! To answer nature's call she would have to get past Roach. (Cocky's brother's dad's sister's father's in-law's, cousin's niece's son's wife's father's name by the way was Roach….yeah I just made that up, I am SO original, it's amazes me EVERY time!).
I hope that you, reader, have not gotten yourself too attached to this lovely cockroach family because Janell's thoughts brought her to the conclusion that she would have to kill this pest. She would have to this time, she could not avoid it. She was on her own. Her eyes searched about her surroundings frantically for something that would do the trick., a book….a stick….a shoe….anything! There on the fllor she spotted her little brother's flippy. "oh you can use that" her mind told her. "no, never!" You see, her little brother is only 2, thus he has really little feet that use really little shoes. If she used that flippy her hand would still have to get to close to that pest. So she continued her search, walking a few steps here and few steps there, and then she spotted it, lying on the floor, there was another flippy. This time it looked to be her days…."ahhhh, now that is much better!"
Janell picked up the shoe, walked back to the bathroom, walked back to that pest Roach. There he still sat, there his fate stared him in the face, there a girl stared a fear of her's in the face.
Janell took the step down into the bathroom, she raised her arm, shoe in hand, and it shook above her head. Her heart was racing, she so wanted to spin right around and run back upstairs to the safety of her bed. But she couldn't, she still really had to…pee…she had to do it, she had to follow through. Where was the courage, she needed courage.
After what seemed like minutes her raised hand came down with a speed of vengeance and the bottom of the flip flop hit the vanity with a SSSCCHHWAACK! Smushing the cockroach so he was no more. Well he still was, he just wasn't alive.
When she lifted the shoe up, there on the vanity was the dead flattened Roach, but he was still big, ugly and scary looking. Janell knew she couldn't leave him there, she couldn't leave him like Cocky's cousin's uncle's sister-in-law was left on April's hotel room floor in Manila. She had to get Roach in the garbage, or down the toilet. But she couldn't bear the thought at this moment of using her bare hands to pick up that bug and put into the garbage. No it was too much. She had already encountered this thing in her sleepy state, causing her to nearly pee on the spot, and then she had to kill the thing, she could not do anymore. So she just gave it a lil flick with the shoe and onto the floor behind the toilet it fell…sigh…huge sigh!
Well that was that, she was able to pee in peace, no crazy scary creature staring her in the face.
Back up stairs in bed, Janell then realised how worked up she actually was. She had noticed before. Her heart was racing, she was breathing heavily and every time she closed her eyes all she saw was that Roach! (ok so maybe she wasn't breathing heavily….that was just to add affect….although the rest is true!) It took her a little while to calm down before she was able to fall back asleep. C'mon that was QUITE the commotion/adventure/daunting task, to have to handle at 2:30 am while still basically asleep…it definitely woke her up!
The next morning her family asked her how her sleep was. Janell's reply was that her sleep was GREAT but the encounter that happened in the middle of it wasn't the greatest…and she proceeded to tell her family what had happened in the quiet wee hours of the morning, (leaving out the part of course, about not being able to dispose of the thing causing her to just flick it onto the floor). The first time she went to the bathroom in the morning she saw the remains of the mid-night encounter laying on the floor. It was then that she realised, no it was not a night mare, it had really happened. It was no problem now to simply take some toilet paper in her hand, pick up Roach and dispose of him properly. Janell successfully conquered one of her fears that night. No more cockroaches would scare her ever again!...on that trip….What a great challenge to work through eh?
That morning on the way too school their van stopped as normal at the hotel to pick up their leaders, Janell was asked how her night had been. With a big smile on her face, "Oh April, you would be SOOO proud of me!!" she exclaimed and continued in telling the adventurous events of the night!
What an accomplishment….
P.S. Janell never did encounter anymore cockroaches through out the trip…thus she wasn't afraid of any ever again….on that trip...
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