Southern Cockroaches

With all this talk of spring and wanting warm weather to bring birds, blossoms, beach visits, etc., but I can’t help but think of what else it will bring out of hiding… cockroaches. If you live in the south, they may be called water bugs or palmetto bugs, but to me, they’ll always be cockroaches which I‘m terrified of… and they fly!

Being from Savannah, I’ve encountered these ugly insects since birth and to my knowledge, have always been afraid of them, but never knew exactly why. Perhaps it’s my very graphic imagination. Perhaps it’s because they fly (don’t let anyone tell you that cockroaches don’t fly!) and are so damn fast! Perhaps it’s memorable events in which I, and a cockroach or two, starred.
When I was about 8 and in bed reading one night, I heard a buzzing overhead and when I looked up, I screamed bloody murder and dived under the covers. My parents and their canasta buddies came running and one of the women knew immediately what was flying about my room. Two large cockroaches… mating. Yep, they were tail to tail, and huge!

One time my children’s father was going to cut down a yucca plant that sat prominently in our front yard and we felt was a danger to our 2 year old. I was standing on the front porch watching when he took an axe to the base of the plant… and hundreds of cockroaches flew out in all directions after the first whack! Who knew yucca plants are a favorite of these insects?

When my children’s father and I divorced, I moved into an apartment in the suburbs as neither one of us wanted ‘the house.’ In the master bedroom, there was a large walkin closet and this is where I placed my sewing machine. One night, I’m sewing away in there, when I notice a cockroach in my bedroom at the top of one wall ( I can spy these things from great distances with my little eye)… between me and the door to the hallway. I didn’t have any Raid in my bedroom, but I did have a can of Extra, Extra Hold hairspray (this was the mid 70s folks!) sitting on my dresser. With a severe case of goose bumps, I snuck up on the little f****r, aimed up high, and sprayed hard. The cockroach started to fly, so naturally, I ran to the closet and closed the door. The next thing I know, he’s crawling under the door. Before the impending heart attack actually took hold, I saw that he wasn’t moving very fast, so I grabbed a shoe and smacked him. Who knew that hairspray would work on their wings like glue?

Like all mothers in those days, I transferred my fear of these things to my two daughters, so that if we’re all in a room and a cockroach appears, we all jump on the couch and scream. As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that I am truly bigger than they are and I’ve worked on conquering my fears. It hasn’t worked all that well. And now that spring is coming and I have a puppy I have to take out at night (when it’s dark!), I’m already getting goose bumps thinking of what ploys I’ll come up with to avoid those that like to hang out under the ginkgo tree by our back porch.

First of all, I’ll run like hell out the back door, down to the yard to safety, and I’ll have a can of Raid with me. I’ll be scanning the area like a Secret Service gal, trying to keep one eye on the pup to make sure she does her business so that we can escape back into the house as soon as she’s done. Yep, I’m going to transfer my fear of cockroaches to the dog too.

I’ve already started to prepare for their emergence as the weather warms up. Once a month, I spray Raid all along the baseboards, under the furniture and under the sinks, and all along each and every window and door. Outside, I spray Outdoor Raid along the openings of every doorway and window on the first floor, and all along the footprint of the house. I spray the trunk of the ginkgo too as they love that tree. And of course, everything that could be considered edible to humans and animals is tightly closed with super glue.

Do you remember that commercial a while back of a cockroach crawling all over your TV screen? I ran screaming from the room to get to my can of Raid!

Okay, so the Raid doesn’t stop them in their tracks, but it most assuredly will kill cockroaches eventually. Seeing a cockroach on its back, kicking, isn’t nearly as bad as seeing one crawling and sneaking around, trying to find a hidey hole from where it’ll eventually jump out and scare you to death. We have stock in Raid.

Now, if you guys saw Wall-e, you know about his friend, the cockroach, who was being portrayed as ‘cute’ and somewhat helpful. I loved that movie; it had such a story to tell and part of that is that cockroaches are here to stay, regardless of what we humans try to do to exterminate them from our lives.

Do they have a purpose, I wonder? What did God have in mind when he made these disgusting creatures? Perhaps it will be discovered in the future that the cockroach holds the answers to the eradication of horrible diseases. Now, I want to be ‘green’ like the next person, but I refuse to give up my Raid and my war against the cockroach. And yes, if one day it becomes known that the goo inside a cockroach is all important in the treatment of some disease, you can blame me personally for the lack thereof in my neck of the woods.

So, I sit, Raid in hand, waiting for the southern cockroach to come out of winter hibernation and try, just try, to find it’s way inside my house. Bring it on, spring. I’m ready!