Midnight Cockroach Battles

After we got home from dinner tonight (delicious Indian food with Shalina and 3 other Americans staying here in Edge House on campus!) we were unlocking the door to our room and I heard a loud scuttling noise coming towards us. I looked down and a MONDO cockroach was scurrying towards us. Shalina does NOT like bugs, and while I’m not a fan I can usually deal as long as they’re not spiders.

By mondo of course I mean about two inches long and thick, brown, and shiny, with giant antennae (Emily—no more complaining about roaches in NYC. Those gross guys are cute in comparison). This dude wasn’t as big as the giant hissing cockroaches you see at the zoo, but he was way bigger than any roach I’ve seen in the states.

Anyways, luckily I had shoes on so I just booted the bug across the room. The roach slid under a shelf 10ft away and scurried off. I felt pretty victorious (and super glad I hadn’t had to step on the roach—the crunch and splatter would have been nasty) and headed to bed awhile later. I was sleeping in the Dutch medical students’ room since they were on safari and had way better bed nets, so I left Shalina and my room with minimal supplies.

[Wall-E lied to me about the friendliness of cockroaches]




After I’d been sleeping super soundly and blissfully for an hour and a half a weird noise invaded my dreams, and since it didn’t match what was happening eventually I realized it had to be coming from Awake World. I forced myself to open my eyes and I see a GIANT SHADOW THING about three inches from my nose on the other side of my mosquito net. I instantly punched the thing with a mean left jab and as it sailed across the room and landed with a crunch I realized it was either the cockroach from earlier or its friend out for revenge. I prayed it had been mortally injured, but after a pause I heard it wandering around the room, its stupid feet clacking as he wandered around.

Despite the adrenalin rush of punching a giant cockroach as I was emerging from deep sleep (woot delta waves), I decided there’s no way I wanted to get out of the safety of my bed net and hunt down the cockroach, and I only had flip flops in the room so I didn’t feel well equipped for battle. I rolled over and tried to sleep, but I must have stunned or injured the roach because he just kept wandering around and bumping into things, and was shockingly loud. He got into the adjoining bathroom and became even louder on the tiles, and I wished I had gotten a better punch in. Perhaps a nice solid right hook.

After what seemed like forever (but was really half an hour) I decided to go use the bathroom, and just check out the situation. I took my flashlight and my flip flops, but was unsure of what I could or would do if I found the jerk. I flipped on the light of the bathroom and looked thoroughly around for him before using the bathroom. As I’m using the toilet the cockroach zooms out of nowhere and narrowly misses my foot, his antenna brushing against me. Trapped where I was, I saw a toilet brush next to the toilet in its stand, and just grabbed it and dropped it on top of the roach who was still zig-zagging around nearby. Sadly the stand is hollow, so he was trapped and not killed, and as I lowered it on him I could see that at least my punch HAD done damage—he had a busted wing that was stuck out.

I finished using the bathroom, flushed, and washed my hands, trying to decide what I was going to do with the trapped roach, who was ricocheting off his cage trying to escape. I decided I could not deal with stepping on him, especially in my flip flops, and turned to go back to bed and leave him there. But even as I turned to shut off the light the amount of noise he was making convinced me to try something. Maybe I could crunch him on the edge of the stand? Or brush him into it and then flush him quickly?

I should have had a better plan, cuz as soon as he was free he zoomed towards my bare toes, and while flinging the toilet brush and stand at him changed his direction, it also let him get away. I was angry now, and I got my flashlight to hunt for him behind the toilet. He zoomed out and flipped over as soon as I shined my light on him, and still out of ideas on how to deal with him, I just re-trapped him under the toilet brush stand, walked out of the bathroom, and turned off the light. He’s been quiet since then, for the past hour and a half but sadly the battles woke me up enough for my body to remind me that it’s really 1pm, not 3am like the clocks here say. So instead I’ve written this embarrassingly long post as a form of post-traumatic therapy, and I will post it in the morning.

Pictures soon!

Morning update: stupid bugger is still trapped, maybe dead, but I've learned my lesson not to peep at him. He can just chill out there.