Tami, don't read

I know that the large cockroaches aren't the scary ones. The little ones, the German Cockroach, is the one that infests households and all that, whereas the big ones sometimes get inside by accident and that they'd rather be outside so it's not a problem.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That didn't help me as I was staring down a cockroach the size of a mouse. Seriously. It was HUGE. I've never seen anything like it, not even in Africa where most bugs were bigger. And I know when it got in - I had the back door open and it snuck in, because I first saw it shortly after that and it was trying to scurry back out. Too late though.

And I couldn't kill it. It was WAY TOO FAST and scurried all around.

And then it tormented me. It actually came out to the living room tonight, and again I couldn't kill the damn thing.

But it met its Waterloo. (How am I so sure it's the same cockroach? Because it's seriously HUGE and had a strange antenna - one was shorter than the other.) On the wall behind the stove, it stared at me, daring me to try. So I did, and I won.

But seriously - SO GROSS to kill something that huge and crunchy.

I sprinkled the Roach Away Tami gave me when I first moved here, and I'll get some more. I'll also insist that the landlord put in weather stripping at the door to prevent his friends (the roach's) from getting in, and while he's trapping for mice (which I haven't seen any sign of since I first moved in) he (the landlord) can trap for roaches.

The thing that bothers me most (after that crunchy sensation under the shoe I used) is how little it bothers me. I just can't get worked up into a Tami-roach-level frenzy - too many places I've lived with too many little creatures. Oh, I'm definitely not thrilled about it in the least, and I'll keep my food in Tupperware for the foreseeable future. But honestly, it's just annoying to deal with, and I keep feeling that I should be more worked up about it.